Deep in the Heart of Me
by counselor
Summary: Opens in 1934. Tonio is oldest of nine, farmboy. Sobe is the new lawman's daughter. She shows up at Tonio's school. What seems inevitable quickly becomes impossible.
1. Chapter 1

Deep in the Heart of Me 1

1934

There are enough of us Cullens to fill a whole pew at church. I go in first, then the rest ending with Granma, then Mom and Dad. That's twelve of us.

I want to sit in the back with the grown boys but Dad says I can't before fifteen. So when the long services are finally over we boys congregate behind the building and smoke or have fights, mostly with the Smiths from Dewberry cause they are always up to fight.

Yesterday after service Jim claimed he had a postcard his father carried back from the war. A French woman and she didn't have clothes on.

We all said he was a liar, that he'd not seen such a thing. Jim said he would prove he had it. He'd bring it to school on Monday. For us older boys who'd been working the harvest, Monday was our first day of school. Everyone else had been at it for a month.

Jim would be expelled if such a thing as that picture was found on him. But he was that kind of fool.

So I'd argued with myself about it all night, if I'd take a look or not.

Thing is, if I look, my brothers will too, cause James has a big fat mouth. He'd even take a punch just to be important enough to say, "Tonio looked."

And I don't want them to—look. Especially if I'm not going to. They shouldn't see that—before I do.

And if my sisters get a flash—I'll kill Jim. And I can't say to put it away if I am gawking too, now can I?

Here I am thirteen, almost a man Dad said. He knew a kid in The Great War same as me, doing a man's job. He was a Brit just thirteen. And maybe I'd like to look at that card, just me, so I could know. But I have the gaggle and herd to consider and never a minute private unless I go so far into the woods they can't find me. Dad says, "You are your brothers' keeper, and your sisters' too."

So I'm thinking about all of this as we walk the mile from the farm to school. Ours is the first farm outside of town and our lane is named for us, Cullen Lane cause that's all there is on that lane and any other around—Cullen land.

My brothers walk ahead and that's the herd, and my sisters fall behind and that's the gaggle.

We're nearly to town when Jasper and Emmett break into a run. Jim waits up ahead on the tracks and two or three others are already there and they are hooting and calling out.

"Get back here," I say stern to my brothers and they slow a little, Jasper does at least, and looks back.

"Ain't you coming?" he says.

Emmett barely looks and he's running again.

I turn away. An automobile is coming from behind and it's getting closer. "Get out of the road," I call to my sisters cause they can't talk as much as they do and keep up so I have to look front and back like I'm bringing in cattle.

The girls break apart and walk single file. And that car keeps coming, and I can already see it's a black Ford. There are gangsters here about, well in Indiana and up near Chicago, but I've got my eye out cause you never know.

That Ford passes the girls and they wave and coo even though they hate the dust. I watch it approach me and two are in it. It's not a car I know and I'm looking. The hat is lawman-we got us a new one. The other is a girl. She looks at me and I almost wave like we do around here but my hand stops there and her hand goes up and she gives a little smile.

I look ahead and my brothers are standing in that group around Jim and I hear Emmett above the rest and now they've seen that picture and I'm so mad I could punch somebody.

But my sisters are running toward me carrying on. Oh the new sheriff has a daughter. A new girl at school. You'd think Claudette Colbert just rode by. This is why I call them the gaggle. That's what they are.

Five little sisters in all. Five little canaries. That's what people say when they sing at church. I call them do-re-mi-fa-so-what.

They look sweet on Sundays standing up front near the pulpit wearing matching flour-sack dresses, each dyed a different color. They sound sweet too, like angels, that's if you don't know them.

And then we have Pee-Wee, youngest of all. Born too early is what happened. He is the runt and they called him that though Dad didn't like it and made them say Peter—my brothers, not me. But Pee-Wee is still too young for school. He's barely out of dresses.

So I come on Jim, he can't stand still one foot to another, holding his card against his shirt so I can't see it and all of the looks on their faces.

He has no self-control. Dad says there were men in the army without it too, and they were the first to spread fear. Dad says a man with self-control loves his woman and his family and he works his land. He does not drink much and make a spectacle, he does not owe money he cannot pay. He does not hit a woman, not ever. He does not swear before the gentle sex, he goes to church and holds his tongue and listens and does not share his business. He does not cry or be a coward. He is not given to temper. He keeps his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open and carries on honest and proud.

Dad says the fool has a loud voice and he calls out and tries to lead you astray.

"Tonio, are you looking or not?" Jim says.

Someone makes the sound a hen makes, a broody chicken.

My sisters are catching up from behind. There's only a short walk to school now. They mustn't be late.

"Her name is Sobe," Elsie says to me.

I don't know how she knows that. It's got my interest. More than anything.

"Hurry up," I say to my brothers and they break from that pack of jack-asses and straggle after.

"Ain't you going to look?" Jim calls out. But it's no good. They're in a group now, the gaggle and the herd. I'm eager to look, all right. But it's not what they think.

Her name is Sobe. I've never heard such a name. And unless it is some trick of the sun on the glass in the window of her father's car, I've never seen such a girl.

11111111111

"Class this is Isa…," Miss Charlotte says.

"Sobe," her dad, Lawman, interrupts.

"Sobe," Miss Charlotte says careful to make the vowels long like we are all deaf.

I picture myself walking up to her and saying something clever like, "What's that other name?" and I get hot in the ears thinking it cause I have baling wire holding the flap of my sole onto the front of my boot. I'd been meaning to fix it but we've been damn busy and there wasn't a reason to care before.

So I have to hear it from my sister on the walk home. "She's Isabella," Elsie says.

She just got to town this morning. She spent the night with her father at Roger's farm over in Dannenburg. Now she's going to live in town in Daniel's old house. That's how they go on—my sisters-and now it's useful.

I felt her in the room today. Miss Charlotte gave her the desk one row over and two up from me. She wore a calico dress with little pink flowers and I think I could smell such a sweetness. Even in our classroom the sun seemed to shine on her dark hair, and she crossed her ankles and she has a form…slim but she's…she's round in the hip. And she moves like she's graceful.

Is she a saint? Pretty as anything I'd ever seen, new calf, fawn wobbling behind its mother, a new colt, puppies, kittens…. I have to laugh at myself.

I was straining to see and hear and trying to look like I wasn't doing either.

I've done my best to ignore her. I sat in back with the grown boys, boys newly come to school with harvest done. I am the tallest, not the biggest, but tall like Dad.

I am strong and not shy as a rule. I don't moon or mope and there's work a-plenty to catch up on.

But I noticed her and my eyes followed her rightly curious and the others made a beeline for her during recess, but not me. I played ball and told the others what to do cause they have no organization and they were passing around that dumb card, the older boys, ones grown like me, then talking to the older girls, the ones that sway back and forth and giggle.

After school her father came and she hurried to meet him and get in the car.

And I walk way out ahead of the herd. I tell them to stay away from me and I don't want to talk and if they try to I'll kick the shit out of either one of them, so they let me get ahead. I want to be by myself. The gaggle is further up. There is work waiting at home. I welcome it cause in my head are so many thoughts to turn over.

I want to think. I want to think about the girl with two names.


	2. Chapter 2

Deep in the Heart of Me 2

Dad reads us the bible every night before bed. I like some of the stories, the ones about war. But my favorite is about Joseph. He has eleven brothers and they are so angry at him cause he's the dad's favorite and a snitch on top of it. So one day they see the dad has given Joseph a new coat and they are so jealous they figure they'll kill him and blame a wild animal. The oldest brother doesn't want to face the old man so he says let's throw Joseph in a hole instead so they do.

Here's the point though—they end up selling him into slavery to get rid of him. But he does really well once he gets to Egypt and ends up being the vice-president. One day his brothers show up because they are starving and Joseph has all this food so he gives them some and strings them along and finally reveals who he is cause they don't recognize him.

And they think they're going to get it, but they don't because Joseph says something like he knows they wanted to hurt him but God meant it for good.

So that's it. He lets them off.

And see I wouldn't. I would have thrown them each in a hole at least and seen how they liked it.

But Dad says God was using every bad thing in Joseph's life to work a greater good for everybody.

Sounds unfair.

See, a greater good is something that is bigger than your idea of what needs to happen. So it can be really bad, but it's actually not as bad as you think.

It makes me sort of mad. Really mad.

Another thing, I don't think I'd ever want to put a baby in my wife if I really loved her. But I'd want sons. Maybe a daughter, for my wife to have help with baking and all, but I could live without that chatter.

But I try to think of what it would be like to join with a wife, or even share my bed, and her body would be mine to touch and…see.

The young married guys, they always look like men after the wedding. Even the awkward ones. It does something for them, to take a wife. But women can die having a baby.

I don't know why I'm lying awake for the second night thinking about girls. First it was that postcard I didn't even see, then it's a real girl. Sobe.

Earlier, as we'd prepared for bed, Emmett and Jasper mention both, the post card lady and the real girl Sobe. Emmett says the postcard is pretty worn out but you can see her paps and hair where her legs meet. I should of known about it cause I have that too, not the paps, but the hair and of course she would.

"Who is she, that's what I want to know," Emmett says meaning the naked lady.

"That's dumb," I say. It's so dumb I'm exhausted just thinking of how many words I'd have to come up with to list all of the reasons why it's so dumb.

Emmett looks ashamed. I don't want to shame him, but he needs to think before he opens his mouth. That woman is probably dead anyway. Or a granma for all we know. And I don't want to think about naked and granma. I don't.

Far as Sobe goes, I already know who Emmett favors, but Jasper keeps things in like me, more than me even. He says, "Sobe is pretty."

I have to use all of my self-control to pretend I don't care. He knows me well. I'm often surprised by what he says, like he reads my thoughts sometimes.

But I am so careful to show nothing. "What about her?" I say, and that after acting like I don't know the name.

"She's pretty," he repeats.

I want to punch him. Pretty? He doesn't know beautiful then. I knew she was beautiful when I first saw her. But bringing her back to my mind, as I've done all evening, even when filling the wagon with manure, it's like I can study her without interruption, and I am right. She's beautiful.

And then my brother's voice and his thoughts on this same girl….he does that all the time, digs into my brain and says the very thing I'm thinking of. Sobe. Pretty? Stupido.

I say, "Go to sleep."

1111111111

This morning I finish my part of the milking so quickly and I lead some of the cows to pasture and I'm back in time to eat my mush and drink some coffee and I check my hair once in the mirror and smooth it off my forehead. It's long on top, but I like it so. Thank God I've got clean overalls to strap over my shirt cause there's such a stain from where I dripped glue when I fixed my boot. And the polish darkened the leather some, but my fingertips too, though I've scrubbed at them.

I think I might be handsome. Granma says, well it is commonly said and girls, they stare at me and so I must be all right. Dad says I won't break the mirror. I know I favor him, but then I have the dark skin like my mother, well dark from the fields but I don't burn like Jasper, I go brown. Mom said she had an uncle, and Granma's nephew, the one I'm sort of named for, Anthony. He died young so thanks a lot womenfolk. But Mom says I am his image.

But I am Edward first and Dad wanted that, for his father. But it didn't stick on me like Mom's Tonio. That name found me, through my granma mostly. It was Antonio until Jasper got ahold and shortened it because he couldn't speak proper. And still can't. So just like them to let a baby figure my name.

Granma has fried us eggs on bread sandwiches. Two each for us boys and apples all around. It has been so dry the apples didn't put on like usual, but there are some small ones that are a little papery but still better than the sad ones from the root cellar.

We each take our lunch in a cloth bag and the walk begins.

"Get away," I tell my brothers and they take off, mad that I disrespect them. That's what they say, I have no respect for them.

The girls are dragging behind honking away.

Jim is an only child. I can't even begin to let myself covet that. But for a couple of months I was one of those. First and only born. Then she conceived Jasper and it just got out of hand before I could even get a taste of being solitary.

Yes big families are the go around here. Every farm needs a couple dozen hands. But Jim is a townie and they don't need so many. I wonder what it would be like.

I'm eager to get to school. I can't deny that. I don't think her father's car will pass me this morning as she lives in Daniel's old house and that is in town, ahead of me. So I'll be denied the peek at her lovely face. But once I'm at school, I can approach her and talk or something.

But I won't. Not yet. Not like the others.

Maybe she'll come to me first.


	3. Chapter 3

Deep in the Heart of Me 3

It's hot and I'm sweating by the time we reach school. I wear a cap and I take that off and rub my forehead on my shoulder then I put it back on only to pull it off again when I get in the dark cloak room before entering the school. I set my lunch and my cap in there. I don't wear a jacket until it's really cold.

There are three grades in this main room, seven through nine. Me being in nine means I'm almost done. I've already gone farther than Dad. But I like learning and maybe someone loves the farm but wants options. Maybe someone would like to do something else someday and hire out the work to others who didn't finish school.

Finishing school when there is work to do, it's a luxury, I know that. The work is first cause that's family so there's no discussion on it. One more year is what Mom bargained for me. "He's so smart," she told Dad when she didn't know I heard. But you hear everything in that house, you pretend you don't, that's all.

She's in her desk, I see that right off without even looking at her, and passing her desk like she's invisible. But what I feel getting that close, it's embarrassing to have so little control. But I do not appear to see her because it's not time.

So I wait, silently, while a seventh grader scrambles out of my desk. Then I put my books there and I sit and I notice, without looking again, that her head is turned as if she followed me with her eyes.

I can barely swallow. If she feels what I do it's only a matter of time.


	4. Chapter 4

Deep in the Heart of Me 4

Sobe raises her hand. She knows how to spell constable. Of course she would Miss Charlotte says and the class laughs.

I do not laugh. After she answers she turns her head to the side again and looks at the floor. I think she's letting me know she spelled that word for me.

I'm barely listening to Miss Charlotte go on. She hardly says anything useful. I know from two other years. I sort through her words like Mom candles eggs. I'm looking for something interesting.

Like Sobe. The girls here, I've known most since the beginning of my life. I think my first memory is of being sick. An ear-ache. I remember staring into the fire and sweating. I remember my father in a nightshirt though he swears he's never owned one.

And I doubt he ever milled around a sick kid, even his first. Mom and Granma do those things.

And I remember so many times Jasper crying. I couldn't believe the noise. But now he's gotten quiet, sitting other side of this room with Emmett. We're all three in here now. They stay away from me cause I'm in that mood and I have been for most of the summer.

"Tonio," Miss Charlotte says.

Tonio what?

She turns and looks at me, Sobe does. I do not let her catch me looking back, but I feel her eyes on my face like I feel the sun in the field.

"Read," Miss Charlotte says like I'm daft.

I look at the page in my geography. I have no idea. "I," I say and I swallow, "lost my place."

You can hear a pin drop. I never lose my place. I'm disgusted with people who do. But now I've lost it.

Miss Charlotte sighs. "Column two. The Erie Canal."

I clear my throat and it's too loud. "The complexion of the Erie Canal…."

The class breaks into laughter.

"Completion," Miss Charlotte interrupts.

"What?" I say, angry and feeling stupid. Sobe is looking forward again. She's lost interest in me.

I realize what I've done, saying the humiliating word 'complexion,' instead of the obvious, 'completion.' I never make mistakes. I'm possibly the best reader and I rattle it off. But not today. Today I'm an idiot.

"Class," Miss Charlotte rebukes.

I clear my throat like it's to blame and I correct the offending word and go forward, stumbling a couple more times.

Pride goes before a fall. It always does, Dad says. He says if you crack most of our troubles you will find pride sitting there looking smug.

I wait until the others are already outside for recess. I go in the cloakroom and grab my lunch and I'm outside quickly and looking around. It's a day that would break my heart if I was afield. But I'm here instead. I see her right away, sitting on the wall that runs alongside the school. She is with other girls, two of them my blood, though I had nothing to do with it. Elsie is Emmett's twin, but she works in the small room with the tenth through twelves. If I am smart, she is a genius I guess. But hardly. Dad says there's that thing in the Cullen seed that makes it twice as powerful and we get twins.

Twice the chance for my wife to die birthing the Cullen magic beans.

I walk past the girls but not too close. Corrine says hello and bats her lashes like I've thrown dust in her eyes. I barely nod and I catch Sobe's eye then, I don't plan it, I'm looking away from Corrine and there she sits, Miss Beautiful Sobe, the sun behind her like a halo from her body, and I can barely make it out, her eyes, but I look then, at her in that light, and I don't smile or hurry I just keep going and light as she must be I hear her feet hit the ground and I know she's jumped off that ledge and follows behind me.


	5. Chapter 5

Deep in the Heart of Me 5

I go into the woods for a bit. We're not supposed to but we do anyway. I jump lightly on the fallen tree that lies over the narrow stream. I balance there, my lunch sack in my hand. I'm looking down at her.

"Can I hide with you for a minute?" she says.

"Hide from what?" I say. She is a little thing. But sturdy. You feel that with her. She has braided her hair and it lies over her shoulder. She's very…fetching.

"Their…," she waves the hand not holding an orange toward our fellow students back in the yard. "They stare."

"Where did you get an orange?" I say. We eat the oranges and the peels around here. We fight for the peels.

"We were given some," she says. "Share?" she holds it up.

I eye it for a minute…her. I might love her attention. I think I do. I jump lightly to the ground, then I straddle the old log. She gets the hint and moves there, sitting a couple of feet from me, her side facing me. She starts to peel the orange and drops the first of the skin into the stream. I want to take it for the girls on the walk home. But I don't think I'll say it. But it hurts to watch it wasted.

When it's peeled she breaks it into neat halves. She holds one out to me.

"Are you sure?" I say. Then I remember I have an apple. I fumble into my bag and pull out the apple and offer it to her.

"Thank you," she says and we awkwardly exchange the half an orange for the apple. I wish I'd of shined it on my bibs but then she might not appreciate that since we're not blood so it's best I didn't.

I put my bag between my legs and tear off the first section of fruit. She is already eating some of hers and she licks at juice at the corner of her mouth with her little pink tongue. I can't sit like this anymore. I grab the bag and swing my leg over and sit like she is, like a lady for Pete's sake.

I go on and eat a section of the orange and I haven't had one since Christmas. It's a bit sour and different and good.

She doesn't require that I smile or anything. She's just eating, very calmly. I am too. Then the bell sounds and I can't believe it. We just got situated. That damn bell.

"You didn't eat your lunch," she says.

"I don't care," I say. But I'm hungry. I always am.

"See you in class," she says getting on her feet.

"Wait."

She turns and looks at me, popping the last of the orange in her mouth and putting the apple in her pocket so she can dust her hands.

"Sobe."

She laughs and wipes at her chin and grins with her mouth full and she's shifting around and laughing. Then she runs away and I'm left there staring after.


	6. Chapter 6

Deep in the Heart of Me 6

I take a piece of the orange peel out of the water. Not to eat…but to save.

I followed after Sobe and was the last in. To my surprise my apple sits on Miss Charlotte's desk.

"Thank you for the apple Tonio," Teacher says blushing.

Mother of God—what? I didn't give the teacher an apple like a sissy.

Jasper's is the first face I see cause he'll carry my embarrassment. We are Cullen men for God sakes.

I look down then. Sobe did this. It feels like betrayal of some sort. I gave that apple to her, and what did she do but run in here and in front of the whole class she gave it to Charlatan as I call her cause she masquerades as a teacher when she's really a ninny.

I can't look at Sobe as I go to my desk. I sit there, heavily, my legs spread out, my boots resting on their heels. I'm bewildered.

And as we begin lessons she turns, that Sobe, and looks at me and smiles.

I have my elbow on my desk and my fist rests loosely over my open mouth. But I'm looking at her. After all my care I'm looking.

She gets busy then, tearing a little piece of paper from a page and writing. She wouldn't be passing me a note. I hope not. I hope…not.

She looks back at me and the passing begins, her hand to another's and another's and it lands on my desk. I feel Jasper's eyes on me and yes, they are. I look at the note and unfold its million folds. I move and sit straighter, not so sprawled out, but hunched over this little piece of paper that holds the key to my life somehow.

"Don't be mad," it says.

Don't be mad? I look up quick and she's looking sneakily at me, crouching behind the person in front of her so Charlatan doesn't see.

"Mister Cullen do you wish to share that with the class?" Charlatan says.

I am quickly refolding it and letting it drop into my sleeve.

I stand because I'm in trouble and that's what we do here.

Sobe puts her head on her desk so she can stare at me. I feel bravery come over me. I won't betray her like she did me with the apple. Now where have I read something like that? Oh yes.

"Tonio?" Charlatan says.

"I am sorry, Miss."

"Who passed you that note?"

"My brother."

"Which one?"

"Jasper." I know he'll take it quiet. Until we get out of here.

Jasper stands.

"Sorry Miss," he says.

"I'm sure you are," she says.

"I must go for molasses before home," I say. "He's reminding me."

"See that it doesn't happen again. I will not pass notes in class two hundred times each due in the morning."

"Yes Miss," I say damn it to hell anyway.

"Yes Miss," he says and I know he'll carry on how I need to write both. I'll get Elsie to do it.

Then her hand goes up. Sobe's hand. She stands.

"What is it Sobe?"

"I…I do not think the punishment is fair," she says.

Miss Charlotte does not know what to do with that word, 'fair.'

I have leaned forward to brace myself on my desk. I am staring hard at the back of her, of Sobe. She wouldn't, would she? Make me out to be a liar? I have handled it.

"I passed that note and…," she turns to meet my glare. She gulps and turns back to face Miss Charlotte, "…he is protecting me. But he's done nothing wrong. I should have the punishment." She looks at me once more. She's sorry, but she's not backing down.

"Miss Charlotte…," I begin, having straightened again.

"Sit down all of you," Miss Charlotte says.

We all sit although I more or less fall into my desk I'm so mad.

"Five hundred times Miss Swan. You boys the same," Teacher says.

"But Miss Charlotte," says Jasper, "I haven't…."

"You went along, Mr. Cullen," Teacher says.

And that's the end of it.

Not hardly.


	7. Chapter 7

Deep in the Heart of Me 7

I am a wounded boy. That's all I know. I don't hear a thing or see it, just her, and the back of that shiny head, that lovely…perfect head on that perfect girl who is not perfect. She is not.

I am slumped in my desk again. "You sweet on her?" Michael asks. He sits next to me. One look is all I give and he shrinks back.

"No talking," Miss Charlotte says.

I know exactly how long five hundred sentences take. Forever.

But worse. I am a man of my word. It's all a man has that matters Dad says. And she as much stood there and told the class, my own blood in here too, told them me and mine were liars. Good for nothing low-born, thieving liars.

She has gone on nice as she pleases then. She raises her hand and answers questions and laughs and smiles and does her lessons and smooths her dress under her bottom…round…and moves side to side…her round…. She's our new lady sheriff and she's restored law and order in the classroom but thing is, she made all the trouble. All of it was her.

I can see Jasper over there already writing. He'll try to get as much done ahead as he can. It will take three of the girls to do this for me now. I'll have to bribe them or they will tell Mom. Only Elsie can do a fair hand to resemble mine. I'll have to teach the others.

But the damage she's done me…this Sobe.

I'm nudged from the side. Michael. I look and I feel the mean in my face and God bless America. There is that French woman, stretched out like a statue, only flesh but worn from so much handling—the photograph I mean in Michael's shaking hand, held against the page of his reader, a story about Benjamin Franklin's stalwart character, that's what's behind my first sight of the female…nipples…hair…flesh…form.

"Tonio Cullen," Miss Charlotte says. "What has captured your attention so much more raptly than the story in your reader? Please…enlighten the rest of us."

Michael is already moving the picture away. I hope he plans to eat it. I feel Dad's strap and I'll deserve it. I welcome it even. Anything but standing now, in this place of shame and humiliation and degradation. She turns to put those big brown eyes on me. I make my back straight as I can and clench my jaw. I keep my eyes straight ahead. "I am thinking on injustice. That it starts in a man's own backyard," I say.

I look at Teacher now and swallow. I don't know what's coming next but I'm as interested as they all seem to be.

"Injustice?" Miss Charlotte says pushing back her chair and getting onto her feet. "And what do you know of injustice young man?"

Well I am trying to think on that. So I lick my lips. "The…government," I say. I love my country but I hate my government like all good Americans.

"The government?" she says folding her arms. I know this stance of hers. It means she's ready to dedicate time.

I do not shift. My dad does not. He makes his points with a strong finger tapping the table, or the desk of those whose collars have never known sun or chaff.

"There is injustice Miss Charlotte. Round here too, depending who you are."

She sweeps her hand toward me. "Tell us Mr. Cullen."

"I'm saying…we got desperate times in these United States. Dad says most rare thing left in America is the family farm what with old deals and new deals and give outs and hand outs and take aways."

"And what do you say Sir?" Her chin is up, brows too. I've never inspired so much of her attention. Two years of laying low and now this on my second day back. All because…well it doesn't help me now to say it, but my eyes flit there for a minute—to Sobe. She is watching me, her hands clasped on her desk over her reader.

"I say we need a co-op run like a business and not some farmwife's takings from eggs and butter," I say. "I go with Dad to the meetings and I listen. And some of you here," I look at the row of boys same as me, "would do well to do the same. We're at the end of a long hard haul and the family farm is near extinction if things don't change and we can't have the money needed for saving our farms if we can't organize enough to market our products. It's the wealth of the land feeding us all. That's what it comes down to."

No preacher ever said come to Jesus with more than I just spoke on the co-op. I left this room for a minute, or I thought I was in Washington or something.

"And I don't know what I'm doing in here with so much to be done…writing sentences and apples and…oranges." I'm gathering my things as I say this. I might want to stop myself but I might not be able to, so I stack my couple of books and my papers and one pencil. I straighten. "I'm done with school, Miss Charlotte. Enjoy that apple." And I walk past Sobe and past Miss Charlotte, who steps back quickly to get out of my way. I walk strong from that room then. I stop in the coatroom and get my cap and my sandwiches. I pull that cap on my head, low, like a gangster or an angry boy. I hear my brothers scrambling to follow me. But I leave that place and I don't look back.


	8. Chapter 8

Deep in the Heart of Me 8

They follow me out. "You follow me you're not going back," I say to Jasper, ignoring Emmett.

Jasper looks confused.

"Think hard," I say ignoring Emmett. That fluffer is going back in, no question. I don't have Dad's permission to let the girls walk home without one of us. They never have. Anyway he's too young to quit. Time he grew up some and watched the babies.

"I'm going with you," Jasper says, his eyes that serious way since birth.

"Get back in," I tell Emmett.

"But…," he says.

"Get in like I said," I repeat. I'm squeezing the sandwiches in my bag.

"You gonna eat those?" Emmett says noticing my hand.

I fling the bag at him. "Keep an eye on the girls," I say and I never sounded more like Dad then.

'Keep your eye on the girls,' is all we hear when we're leaving the farm. It's hammered in.

So I take off and Jasper matches my stride. He's always one inch behind and that's my preference cause it's my job to be oldest, appointed by God is what Dad says. In olden times all the land would go to me. Now I have to share Dad says. It goes between the three of us and we make sure the girls marry well and give each what we can. Hopefully we see to it they marry land without the husband being the worst son of a bitch ever lived. That's how Granma puts it to Mom. Granma always tells the truth, even if nobody wants to hear it. She curses in Italian though. And we figured out first time we got an Italian hand, 'Figlio di puttana,' does not mean, 'God bless us everyone.'

"He will rule over you," Granma says quoting Eve's curse every time she thinks the fairer sex get a raw deal. "And he does," she always adds with a sigh that lasts about ten seconds.

It's one big line of getting bit on the ass. That's what Dad says when he smokes with the men at the town meetings. I'm beginning to believe it.

My anger takes me most of the way home. Jasper is quiet. That's what I most like about him. Dad says even a fool is thought wise if he keeps his trap shut.

We turn on Cullen Lane and Jasper speaks, "Mom won't like it."

When we grow corn you can't see the house from the main road like this. But the field is stubble now. Government wanted us to cut back on producing so Dad expanded the dairy and kept more in pasture. But this front field, he's sowing it in winter wheat this year. Soon it will be cultivated and planted. Very soon now that I'm done with school.

So there she sits, the place we were born. All of us. Makes me proud to see it, always does. Makes me know I'd do anything to protect it. It's my home. My family. Our farm. We've held on when others couldn't. Dad says we should be humble, but I'm just proud. That's all.

The house is tall, two-stories and white and been added onto more than a few times. Outhouse sits behind and we move it pretty regular.

And we got some kind of building for everything. My dad loves to build. But our barn, it sits to the right, big and important. Dad says God holds the world, but for me he holds the barn.

So we are walking along and this kind of dread comes on me, but it don't last. Dad will let me out. I think. Jasper though. Not sure.

"She got embarrassed," Jasper says.

"Who did?" I think he means Teacher.

"The new one. Sobe."

"What?" Did I embarrass her? How?

"When she came in from recess she had the apple. We…they all knew. Said, "Um." He draws out the 'm.'

I have to let it sink in. Comes to this new subject of Sobe I feel…average. The way others must feel at sums or even their letters. I always feel far ahead, always know the answers before the rest figure the question. But now I'm like them. Average. I don't know what Jasper means. They couldn't know about the apple.

"She just got flustered," Jasper says.

"So?" I say. It's dumb but…I just don't know. No one could see us in the woods.

"She went in with an orange and came out with an apple. They were all watching."

"So…?"

"She gave you her orange. And…you took it."

"I hate this place," I say picking up a rock and flinging it far. I don't hate it. I don't hate anything for a minute.

I embarrassed her. She passed it off to the teacher.

"It wasn't a bouquet," I say in my defense. "It was just an apple."

"It's not the apple. It's the orange," he says.

Yes. We haven't seen those since Christmas. She went into the woods to share the orange with me.

And they all wanted it. And some of them, they wanted her.

Did she pick me then?

She picked me.

And I left school. I left her.

Oh.

"How you got from getting called out to making that speech…on the co-op? That's anyone's guess," Jasper says.

I stare at him, but I have no pride now. "How did I sound?"

He's shaking his head.

"Well she said what was I thinking and we had the sentences…," I say.

Now he's nodding.

"I just said…injustice. The way she picks on us every year. She don't like us coming in late ruining her little sewing club," I say looking for another rock. "She's damn lucky I flipped it to farming and didn't let her have it."

"Have it?"

"Tell her my mind," I say finally finding a rock I can throw.

He's shaking his noggin again.

"Well why'd you follow me out then?"

He grins. "I didn't want to write those sentences."

We laugh. "Dad says you ain't a man until you can think long term, one season to the next. Ever think you might need more schooling?"

We laugh again.

We ain't laughed together maybe all summer. We've worked hard and I been in that mood. He stood by me today and he'll be in trouble for it, but he's always true.

"Let me do the explaining," I say. I'm better at it. So we go up the lane to face the folks. And I think of that Sobe. And I reach in my pocket and touch that peel. I think I'm right about her.


	9. Chapter 9

Deep in the Heart of Me 9

I'm looking for the right time is all. I know the girls are home from school even though Emmett hasn't shown and he's supposed to muck stalls. Those canaries will be singing to Mom and Granma. The whole school is already talking about it. That's how it goes. Two big boys walking out. And we're Cullens.

Jasper keeps following me, all through chores. He's waiting. I'm getting buggered with him again. Over the summer he turned more to Emmett and less to me. I wanted that, some time to myself. But just because he stood for me he thinks it's like it was and it's not. I want to be by myself. Emmett is the one with a twin, not me.

So I'm trying to feed and he's right there. "Get back," I say.

"I need to get some," he says, his bucket empty as he waits for me to get oats from the bin.

"You're breathing on me," I say.

"I'm not," he says. "You say that…and I'm not."

I fill my bucket and make a noise in the back of my throat.

"Tonio," Dad calls from the front of the barn.

I lift my head, look briefly at my brother, shove my bucket against him and he takes it. "Finish," I say, meaning he's not to follow. I told him I'll do the explaining and I will.

"Jasper," Dad calls right after.

I hear Jasper dump the feed and set the buckets on the hard earth. I wipe my hands on my overalls and lift my cap to smooth my hair. After leaving school we'd bypassed the house and gone straight to the barn and we wanted to have everything finished before Dad got back from helping at Buchholtz's place.

He waits for me, my father does. "There are people here," he says when I get closer. "Sheriff, teacher. The sheriff's daughter."

Sobe?

"We didn't do anything. We just quit school," I say.

"You quit." Dad repeats.

"School."

"Why?"

"Miss Charlotte gave me a punishment for reading a note. Then she asked me about injustice and I said there was some around here and before I said the wrong thing…about the punishment…I spoke on the co-op." Then I think of the picture. The naked lady. Is that what this is about?

"What did you say?"

"I just said we should run it…like a business. I said…they should care about it."

He is staring at me. "Am I about to be made as small as a mouse's diddy?"

"No sir. I just walked out. They followed. I sent Emmett back inside."

"Did you do it arsewards?"

"No Sir. Just…I ah…I said the note was from Jasper. I lied."

He moves his boot like he's stealing himself for a punch. "You lied."

"Yes. I…I was protecting…," I nod toward the house.

"Your mother?"

"No. No sir."

His brows go up and he looks there and Sobe waves a little. "Oh," Dad says.

You couldn't go to jail for looking at a picture. But what if Miss Charlotte found it after we left—the picture of the lady. What if they were rounding us up to get at it?

Do they think I brought it to school?

If that's why they are here, Sobe will know. She'll know I looked.

"Come on then, Romeo," Dad says. "And to think I bought Ollie's finest whiskey for everyone in that joint the day you were born."

We're already walking toward the house. I see them there on the porch. My mother would have asked them inside. Normally. I don't know what this is but my sisters are in the window looking like a stack of pumpkins.

Sobe is the one who stands out, she stands apart, not on the porch but on the stairs leading to it. She comes down a couple of steps. I think she's going to cross the yard to me. But she looks back. I think her father stopped her.

"If you've something more to tell me…," Dad says as we walk. Dad always walks quickly. Truth is I have to work to keep up most times.

"There's nothing," I say and my stomach rolls over. "You know how Miss Charlotte doesn't like us coming in late."

Dad stops. "Does it make you a better man to quit school over it?"

Why is it always that? Why is everything supposed to make me a better man? "Yes," I say. I don't know why I say it, but everything that happened today helps me be a better man. So yes. "You were right about school. I can do more here. You need me here. You said it yourself. And…Jasper too. There's the wheat and the butchering. We don't want to go."

Speak of the devil, Jasper catches up to us then.

"What do you say on this boyo?" Dad says. Boyo is either much love or like now—not so much.

Jasper looks at me and shrugs. He'd rather say nothing than get it wrong.

"Like I thought," Dad says and he takes off again.

So we hurry in his wake.

"Our story?" Jasper says from the side of his mouth.

I don't answer. I don't have 'a story.'

So we reach the porch. "Here are my sons," Dad says. Right off he claims us. He's always done that. Most times it feels good, but sometimes it's a burden. Right now I'm not sure. I can't get over the sight of Sobe standing on our porch stairs. She comes all the way down and walks right to my father.

"Hello Mr. Cullen. I'm Sobe," she says extending her hand and Dad takes it by the fingers and shakes.

"Miss Sobe," Dad says.

I am looking at her. She is something. More beautiful than earlier even. There's a rose in each cheek and her lips are red like the songs…it's in songs.

Dad introduces us to the sheriff and I snatch off my cap because I'm not sure I should or shouldn't cause we're not indoors and no one has died. And the sheriff comes down the stairs like his daughter has and I step forward and shake his hand.

"Oh," he says, "a working man."

He shakes Jasper's and says the same.

"Yes," Dad says, "holding a fork mostly." Dad's mother was French and his father Irish and sometimes he's more one than the other.

His favorite joke is about our appetites—how we eat him out of house and home. It's why he farms so we can graze. Things like that.

But Sobe is not smiling.

Mom repeats we should all go into the house and sit. That means Granma has been running around the parlor pulling sheets off of furniture and spraying perfume.

"Nah," Sheriff says, "I know there's chores before sundown. We'll make this brief."

Sobe repositions herself to stand beside me. I look at Mom right away, I don't know why. Mom is looking at me, too. It's the face she has when stitching a wound.

"This whole thing is my fault," Sobe begins.

So this isn't about the naked lady.

"I have a very distraught daughter," Sheriff says.

"I've explained to Miss Charlotte…," Sobe says.

"It is always difficult when the boys come back. Not just yours but all of them…," Miss Charlotte is saying as she stands next to Mom on the porch. She is saying this mostly to Dad, I think. He's on the school board and he often says Miss Charlotte tends to forget she is teaching in a farming community and not just the town of Murphydale.

"My boys do not disrespect," Mom says, as much to 'her boys,' as anyone. She folds her arms and sets her lips in the look she usually just gives Dad when he, "Gives away our last dime," or something.

"I passed a note and Antonio got in trouble for reading it. I deserve the punishment. It got out of hand," Sobe says. Then to me, "You will come back to school, won't you Antonio?"

Her beautiful eyes are pleading. I can barely breathe.

And she does not ask Jasper.

Then she does and I feel disappointed.

"And this one?" Dad says pointing at my brother.

"I…said the note was from Jasper. He…went along," I say.

"That is lying Antonio!" Mom says wagging her finger. "And now your brother is in trouble." To him Mom says, "And you lied too!"

"Yes Ma'am," Jasper says. He always gives in to her immediately.

Then back to me, "And it's your fault. You are the oldest!"

I do not wish to be scolded in front of Sobe. So I just take it like a boyo.

"What was the punishment?" Dad asks.

Miss Charlotte clears her throat. "Five hundred sentences. For each."

Mom says something in Italian. She does not care for Miss Charlotte but she does care for schooling.

Dad has his hands on his hips and he's staring off biting the inside of his cheek. "They've barely time for the books with the work as it is. They understand hard work and the results it brings," he says. "You're asking them to put their time into something that means…nothing, you'll pardon my saying. So how about they paint the schoolhouse? It's been needing a good coat of whitewash."

I am looking at my dad like he's Solomon. I'd much rather do that than write those sentences. But since I'm not going back I don't have to do anything so why is he signing me up?

"Antonio you will come back to school, won't you?" Sobe says, her hand on my arm. She is touching me.

I swallow. "I um…Dad needs me…."

"They will be back," Dad says. "And they'll give no more trouble, Miss Charlotte. They are good boys."

I look at him, at Dad. But just for a second because Sobe takes her hand from my arm and I look at her again. Then Mom, then her dad, then her.

"I'm so glad," she says softly. Then she tells my folks it was nice to meet them and she heads for the car and the others start to follow.

That's it? She doesn't even say good-bye?

"You've something to say to Miss Charlotte," Dad says with a solid nudge.

I clear my throat. "Forgive me Miss Charlotte." We are taught to ask for forgiveness over saying 'I'm sorry.' Mom says that gives the person offended a say instead of just hearing how sorry you are. They need to make a choice to forgive the offense. Or not.

Of course we are not allowed to not forgive. If you say it, 'I don't forgive you,' it just invites another conversation where Mom talks until your ears bleed and you'll sign the paper and forgive your own murder if she'll just drop it.

"Sorry is as sorry does, young man," Miss Charlotte says.

Mom is talking Italian again.

"Does Sobe still have to write the sentences?" I ask.

Miss Charlotte smiles but it's that pretend smile she does when she'd more like to slap your face. "That is between Miss Swan and myself. I will say she has a contrite spirit about her disobedience. Perhaps it will rub off."

"Well, could she help us paint?" I say.

"She could not," Miss Charlotte snaps. She heads to the car then.

Jasper chases after her and asks for forgiveness.

"Yes, Mr. Cullen. But not a repeat?"

"Yes Ma'am," Jasper mumbles.

"In this house, Antonio," Mom says. "In this house."

Dad is already headed for the barn. Jasper is waiting for her to order him in too, but she is already half-way in the door so he claps me on the back and hurries after Dad.

I look at the sheriff's car as it makes a u-turn in the yard. Sobe is watching me from the back window and she waves.

I almost lift my hand then it finds its way into my pocket and the first thing I touch is that orange peel.

"Antonio!" Mom screams.

I go in then.

The girls are looking at me like I've just broken out of jail. "What's got into you?" I say to them, but no one speaks they just glare and I follow Mom through the kitchen into the back room. Emmett sits there like a prisoner who's being drilled for valuable information. He looks up at me and I can see at some point he's been crying. God sakes.

Mom closes the door and turns on me. "My daughters come home and tell me a vile thing. Your brother was overheard bragging about looking at despicable things."

I close my eyes for a minute. Then I look at her again. I can feel the blood burning through my face.

"Mom it's over. It won't happen again." I might have water in my eyes.

"Antonio," she says, "the sheriff comes and the teacher! And a girl! What am I to think!"

She was thinking same as me. She was thinking her sons were about to be arrested for being perverted.

I look at Emmett. He is holding his face in his hands. The picture must have really gotten to him. He can't look at Mom and he won't look at me.

"You are supposed to watch over your brothers," she says. "And your sisters tell me this! Who brought such a thing to school!"

Obviously the girls aren't telling. Maybe they don't know, but that's doubtful. Emmett won't tell.

"Maman," I say this because it's what Dad calls her and so there are times we do too. "It's not your sons. Emmett is only ten. It's the first day back for some of us. I will be there to watch…."

She takes me by the ear. "You quit school after I've put my foot down? You will go to school Mister Big Britches! Long as you can you will learn!"

I refuse to say ow. I have two different ears and it used to be a story and I got made fun of, but not anymore. I beat the last one who dared to call me mutt-ears good and solid. But both of them—my ears, for all they are different, both of them hurt like hell when twisted by Mom.


	10. Chapter 10

Deep in the Heart of Me 10

At breakfast next morning we are hastening to down eggs and sidemeat and Granma's bread fried in the grease and covered with real maple syrup. We barely talk now that we're trying to get chores done and look halfway decent enough to get to school. Especially me, though it's my business only. I'm taking pains is all I mean.

"Miss Charlotte won't let us stay in class if there's manure on our boots," Emmett says sopping his bread in the syrup.

"Well I don't like manure," my youngest sister Colleen says wrinkling her tiny nose.

That must mean the rest of us like it.

I am taking care not to get food on my shirt. I'm not wearing bibs today so my shirt has nothing to hide behind.

"Father did you tell our children the news?" Mom says looking mostly at me.

We all stop eating at once. And just like that I know. And my appetite is gone. I put down the fork and I wipe over my mouth.

She's going to have a baby. Another.

"You are going to have a brother or sister come spring," Dad says. He also looks mostly at me.

She nearly died having Pee-Wee.

He promised me then there would be no more. We nearly lost her. Our mother.

"You said we wouldn't take a million dollars for Pee-Wee, but wouldn't give a sawbuck for another," I say. And everyone laughs when he says it, but it was a promise.

"Well 'another' is here," Dad says with the voice that means there is no discussion.

"But…." I don't know what to say. I look at Mom.

"It's all right. Eat your breakfast Antonio," she says. When I just keep staring she says, "I'm healthy as a horse."

"You were last time," I say. I've no wish to worry the girls but the trouble comes later, when she gives birth. That's how it was with Peter.

"Tonio," Dad says, and it's a rebuke.

I push back my chair. All of their eyes are on me. I'm the leader. When I say it's time to go, we go. All of their chairs scoot back and they are off for books and lunch bags.

111111111111

She is pregnant. I do not kiss her cheek before leaving the house today.

I stomp across the yard and they all keep their distance from me.

I'm nearly blind to the morning, nearly blind to the land.

Deaf to the birds and their songs.

"Antonio," Mom calls me.

I don't want to see her, talk to her. But I stop in my tracks and I wait and she shoos the others forward and I groan knowing she will want to walk with me and dig in my thoughts.

She catches up and threads her arm through mine. I move with her, but I won't look her in the face.

"From the time you were born your father would carry you over our land. It got in you that way. You tried to eat it when you were young. Dad called you mud grubber," she says.

I do not smile, but I am listening. I have so many memories of my father doing this, speaking to me in a low voice as we stumble along and I ride in his arms or on his shoulders.

"He's mud grubber," I say.

"My Tony, my beautiful son," she says, and it is something I can only bow to when she says it. I am her Tony, but not over this.

"He promised," I say. I stop now. I'm ready to break. "You nearly died…." I can't finish. She knows how it was. Like that young woman west of Halona Creek who died and left twins with no mother. Mom and grandma cried over that story and sent baby clothes. And I'm not supposed to worry on this?

"Shhh now," she says holding to my arm. "Look at those trees," she says pointing to the gully that runs along our house. Dad put a stand of pecan trees there when I was born. They are almost fourteen years and I harvest big burlap bags of nuts from them every year with enough to give and sell. He has done that for each of us, planted something or made something that is ours.

I know this place, the sounds of it, the hum, and how it has a memory. Dad says it has kept us alive and tried, more than once, to kill us. The land is his battle, but he is hers. That's how I see it. He would kill her for his own selfish ends. There aren't enough sons and there isn't enough land to fill him.

"Tony," she says and she touches my cheek, "this is a blessing. A child is always a blessing."

I swallow and refuse to let tears show. "If you die, I'll never forgive him," I say.

I know it hurts her. I don't want that, but she is hurting me, hurting all of us.

I've made her mad now. Maman is very beautiful for all the children and toil she is the most beautiful mother in these parts. But she has a temper, my mother, and when she is angry, like now, like last night when I quit school and she found out about her sons and the picture of nakedness, her eyes go dark and her mouth goes into a line and she twists something or digs her fingers somewhere. "You listen to me Mr. High-hat, you will love your father and your family or you are not my son, you are the devil's son."

We stare eye to eye as she has pulled me down to her level with a hand on the back of my cap.

It is hard to hold her look, but not impossible.

She moves her hand enough to thunk the back of my head.

"Yes Ma'am." She has jarred that out of me. I had no plan to say it.

"You are my oldest son but you are still my child and I am your maman and I do not ask your permission to have babies."

I don't bring up the promise.

She withdraws her hands. "Now go to school."

I'm trying. But I don't say that either.

"Oh come here," she says, once again embracing me. "My Tony. My sweet boy."

I am bent over, my hands holding my books and my lunch, but I allow her to hug me though my patience is thin as the pastry dough Granma stretches over the top of our table.

She finally lets go and pinches my cheek. "Look at this fuzz on my little boy's cheeks," she says meaning the beard that is not thick enough to shave everyday but in the sun it's like a downy invasion.

"Maman," I say, embarrassed.

Finally I can go, the gaggle way ahead on the road and the herd out of sight. And I…I am a big fat sissy trying to find the man that my mother has just chased into hiding.

1111111111111111111

By the time I near school I have a wet patch on the back of my shirt.

It's not fall yet, still the highest heat we've had all summer, like someone left hell's gate open. The grasses seed and the trees start to pale and the leaves fade while their limbs lighten and groan in the wind.

It's a big sky here, made for swelling whatever it is I'm already feeling, making it run all over. Even today with clouds the color of milk spilled on the barn's floor, even today it's endless, this rumbling sky.

God's yoke, Dad says, is to live with nature, it's his easy burden, to walk the land and see your humble place in the kingdom.

Take care of the land, take care of the family, take care of your neighbor. There are things Dad says, all my life, parts of this same conversation I know as well as the Our Father. And my answers are equally the same.

"When I'm gone you will carry it...this land…this family," Dad says.

I don't like it when he talks of being gone. I hate that.

"You won't get old," I say, already worried he is ancient.

He laughs at this.

How many times I have studied his face, his lips and whiskers and the crowded teeth beyond and the way his chin moves when he smiles.

I'm mad at him. And I love him fiercely.

But what I told Maman is true. If she dies, I'll never forgive him.

11111111111111111

I finally reach school and I step into the classroom and I see her—Sobe. Then I see the rest but nothing as important as her. She has a new dress each day, not like my sisters who must wear the same dresses as many days as they can.

"Good morning Tonio," Sobe says to me as I near her desk. Now this blue color in the dress and a bow in her hair, it's very pretty—the effect.

Matter of fact just seeing her, it's like a spring floodgate has opened in me. I feel the rush in my chest. But I nod like I am barely giving her a thought in this world. Yet I see her in that one look, down to her fingernails as she holds a book she'd been reading.

I want to study her, but I can't do that until I'm in my desk. How I do it is I take one look and then I think about it. That worked most of yesterday and the day before. One glance is all I need. One glance at a time for the album in my head.

"Tonio," Miss Charlotte says hurrying into the room. "You and Sobe."

Now what? She stands then I do and we go forward. I fold my arms and stand tall. I am taller than Sobe. A man feels this way. I think.

"You are moving into the small room with the tenth graders and up."

"Why?" I say. I've no inclination to go in there, always planned to quit before I had to. When our schools consolidated we got the Smiths and a new teacher, Mr. Halloran. He looks more suited to knitting doilies than wrangling buffs. Elsie says the Smiths get going sometimes and run right over Halloran. Dad says he's a good man and he'll figure it out.

We're related to some around here. If not by blood by the past. Mom's parents came in a group to work in the coal mines. Dad's came for the land. But we're not related to the Smiths. I refuse to be related to those cafflers.

"It is better this way. Gather your things," Miss Charlotte says.

Jasper eyes me. He won't like this. But he is in eighth so he needs to stay put. I gather my things with the eagerness of someone going into the arena to fight jackals with a tooth pick.

But here's my consolation and my worry all rolled into one-Sobe moves with me.

111111111111

Miss Charlotte herds us over to the new paddock, like we'd lose our way. I wish Sobe would look at me, and right as I wish it, she does, quickly, behind Miss Charlotte's back. She gives me a smile that goes inside me. I have smiled back without thinking about whether or not I want to.

And right then we have arrived at the new room. Mr. Halloran gets on his feet. He seems delighted over Sobe, and equally so over me. He waves his hand toward two desks, one behind the other, in the row nearest the window.

Coyote sounds come from the Smiths in the back of the room as Sobe crosses the floor. I give them a look I'm fully willing to back up as I follow her. She chooses desk four, I move to five. I'm dizzy to sit so near. The Smiths are laughing and Mr. Halloran says, "Silence Class."

The Smiths ignore him. He speaks over their noises and introduces Sobe, then me.

I need no introducing. My own sister sits up front near Halloran's desk and all in here know who I am, many have worked at our farm and times I've worked at theirs with Dad. So there's Elsie sitting up front. She's our brilliant one, promoted here to be challenged she's that wickedly smart. Our family prizes that as if she's proof there might be hope for the rest of us. Well I know there is for me.

So there I sit, and Sobe is so near, so near and one of her braids is an inch from my fingers, and I think to touch it, just a light touch so she won't know.

The first spitball lands on my shoulder. I get on my feet and turn to the Smiths. I'm holding the disgusting thing in my fingers but I know better than to throw it in here.

Halloran says very tiredly, "Take your seat Mr. Cullen."

I turn to the front of the room and take my seat.

In a couple of seconds I feel another, this time behind my ear, the round ear that sticks out, as they are different like I said. Mr. Halloran is taking attendance and the Smiths are laughing behind their hands and grinning at me. I flick the paper from behind my ear. "Don't do it again," I say outright.

"Mr. Cullen," Halloran says.

I stand. "Yes Teacher?"

"We do not speak out in this classroom," he says, a red flush in his neck and cheeks.

"Yes sir."

"Sit down and be still."

I sit then. And Halloran finishes roll and I feel another hit my neck and the boys back there are all laughing now. I peel the large wad off my neck and throw it on the floor and decide to handle it like Dad would. I raise my hand.

"Yes Mr. Cullen?" Halloran says.

I stand. "Sir, the ceiling is falling in."

They break out in raucous laughter.

"The ceiling?" Halloran looks up at the board and batten ceiling over our heads. It's pretty well peppered with spitballs. "I don't see anything amiss Mr. Cullen. Sit down at once."

The boys in the back crack up all over then.

So that's how it is. He looks at the evidence and says he sees nothing amiss.

I sit and two more spitballs hit me, one on my shoulder another on my head. Now those boys are wanting me to make a show.

Sobe turns and looks at me. A spitball lands on the top of my shoulder, another in my hair.

Sobe turns to the front of the room and raises her hand.

"Yes Miss Sobe," Halloran says, swallowing the end of her name and making it sound like Sob.

"It must be snowing in here Mr. Halloran. Tonio has snowballs in his hair."

There is a long silence. Not even the boys in the back of the room make a sound. And I am proud as punch she has followed my lead.

"Come forward," Mr. Halloran says.

I grip my desk tightly. He mustn't single her out. If he goes for a ruler, well I'm ready to spring from this desk and save her.

I already know he's a coward.

Dad says we are better than none in God's eyes, but good as any. I say I'm still thinking on it. Especially with Smith-spit drying on me.

As I see it, I am their better, like it or don't, our family is well thought of and honest in these parts and I don't throw paper-wads in the school and carry on like a jack ass. Their father makes them but he does not raise them. That's what is said around here.

Halloran gives Sobe the job of writing sentences on the board so the rest of the class can parse them. I notice the boys in the back are pretty well stuck watching her. She is uncommonly interesting to all of us it seems, and I don't know why it makes me so angry, but it does.

If not for Sobe I wouldn't be here. It's why I came back. So I am the worst mooner of all. The Smiths, like me, and most of the boys in here have worked through harvest and will be gone again for the butchering. We barely fit the desks or the closed in room, and sitting this still is more stillness than most would ever know except for school and church. So it was foolish to go along with this, but I see her face again when she touched my arm and asked me, "You'll come back to school, won't you Tonio?" Well I'm the one she was worried about over them all.

I move to the windows and sit on the bench there and Mr. Halloran does not even challenge me. I'm looking at Sobe now, just like the rest, her braided hair moving against her back as her delicate hand writes the words in the most beautiful loops and curls.

And I'm not looking quick like I did yesterday or the day before. I'm pretty well staring.


	11. Chapter 11

Deep In the Heart of Me 11

At recess I know things will be settled. When Sobe is finished at the board, she sits beside me on the bench along the windows. We are facing the room and Halloran lacks the sand to do anything about it. It is a bold move but she has chosen me in front of them all.

She looks at me once in a while and she smiles. It makes my heart pound every time but I don't let on, I just stare at her like a boyo.

It makes me proud. I feel like I can do anything needed to right the wrongs here. I feel like I can climb a mountain, or at least do the spelling Halloran gives us and anyway, we live in the flatlands. But I do look at her and smile my best and I don't use my smile so often. Not full on like that. The ones in the back see and a couple of them made a sound but I'll be taking care of all that soon. I am Tonio Cullen.

So we finish the morning that way, side by side, looking out for ourselves in the snowstorm. They continue to throw spitwads at our empty desks and at each other, and sometimes one makes it up to my sister, or even to Halloran's desk, and once in a while Tillo Smith throws a wad at me and holds my stare and that is a dare.

My dad says Halloran's a good man but I don't know what kind of rule he uses to come up with that notion.

So it is finally recess and there is Elsie, happy to be with us. It might as well be my mother right here because this sister, oldest in the gaggle, thinks it her job to tell Mom everything.

I should have known I'd have to try and talk to a girl with the eyes of the family looking on.

"What's it like to be the only one?" Elsie asks Sobe before we're even all the way down the school's steps.

"The only kid in my family?" Sobe asks.

My ear is always peeled to learn what's going on. I'm used to it as oldest at home. And I listen like that to Sobe.

"It's all I know," she says and she laughs a little. "Sometimes I need someone to play checkers with."

She says that to me.

Elsie sighs. What is she talking about? She has it good compared to us boys having to do all the work. The girls help but mostly they work in the house. Elsie has never been one to like field work.

But I'm thinking of Sobe being alone. Lonely? Are they the same? I already see myself playing checkers with her.

But lonely. I don't know what that would feel like. Am I spoiled or something? I'm not! But loneliness is something Mom wouldn't put up with. She tells a story of a rich woman who she heard was bored. Mom made fun of such a word. If you feel bored or lonely, Mom will give you a job.

"What does your mother say?" Elsie asks.

Sobe laughs a little. But she doesn't answer and Elsie is an embarrassment. There was no mother in the car that day. I've not heard of one. But this is what we do around here. We ask your business.

They are out then, the Smiths, Tillo and his brother Utz.

There are others, some from Dewberry like the Smiths, but none I fear, for like my Dad I do not fear others.

They are coming down the stairs smirking and making their noises.

"You should go to the other side," I say to Elsie and Sobe meaning the yard on the other side of the school where the younger students play.

Sobe looks surprised. Does she think I'm sending her off? I am.

I turn and wait for Tillo at the bottom of the stairs. He is out front. Utz is close behind. I am blocking Tillo's path.

"Move out of my way Tonio," he says. He is higher on the stair and as tall on the ground. He is heavier than me, older by one year.

"You won't put your spit on me or mine again," I say, and that includes Sobe.

His eyes go to Sobe. He will not be a fool in front of her. Well neither will I.

Utz leaps over the bannister, half falls to the ground with his heavy boots. But he is soon there, my same age, smaller than me but he pulls himself up to look close in my face.

I push Utz away. Tillo lunges for me then but I foresaw that and he meets my fist in his stomach. His stomach is hard but so is my fist and he bends forward and grunts and Utz is back on me, grabbing me and running me back and we go down. I roll us over and we break and I quickly scramble on top and Tillo pulls me off of him and I'm back on my feet with Tillo's big arm around my neck and he's dragging me and speaking German and I kick and kick behind me like I'm Old Sam our mule. Now Utz is charging me from the front so I use Tillo to hold me while I lift my legs and kick shit toward Utz. I get him in the chin and he goes down.

Then I go mad and bend forward and roll Tillo over my back like we're in that circus that came through, like the acrobats, and we end up on the ground and I'm sitting on him somehow, but he soon throws me off and we get on our feet and I feel wet under my nose and knuckle there and it's blood. I'll be in trouble with Mom but not so much with Dad if I win.

I charge Tillo and hit him in the middle and he flies back and I'm on him again and I punch left and right. He's got his arms up and I feel the hair being ripped from my head as I'm grabbed from behind but I get in a few more punches and I'm pulled off and I can't get off my feet before Tillo gets up and charges at me and now we're a heap, me and the two Germans and I am fighting for my life.

But it eases some. Jasper has a broom and he hits Tillo in the back of the head and then all over. Tillo growls and gets on his feet and Jasper, still holding the broom takes off at a run. I am still fighting Utz and we get on our feet and I go in swinging, knowing I have to make it count before Tillo catches Jasper. I hit him once, then again, then three more times and he falls and rolls to his side and I take off across the yard where Emmett is throwing rocks at Tillo while Jasper uses the broom handle like a sword. I lunge for Tillo, grab him around the throat like he did me. I drag him down and get on him then and he gets his hands around my neck, then he yells out. Jasper has used the broom again, this time on Tillo's willy.

With Tillo's hands off me, I stand up and he is curled on the ground like his brother only he is yelling out and holding his dong.

I get my handkerchief out of my pocket and hold it under my nose. The students have been around us, yelling and screaming as they watch. I have not been aware. I am just lifting my head to find Sobe when I feel the hand on my arm.

I look into the eyes of Sobe's father. I guess I'm going to jail.


	12. Chapter 12

_News. I took the two stories Hard Hearted and Me and Mom etc. down this morning except for Chap. 1 on each and it was hard, but it's done. I will let you know when they surface again and where in the published world. Thank you for reading._

_Thank you for all of your comments toward me._

_I have two author interviews you can read if you'd like. First to Sunflower Fran my mentor and friend, thank you so much for everything you do. She has posted an interview in the FB page Counselor's Corner that she graciously oversees for these stories. Also on A Different Forest there is a two part interview. Thanks to tinie432 for putting this together. Thanks to everyone for creating art to go along with these stories. Thanks to the site Robsessed and the kind ladies over there for mentioning these stories on Fanfic Fridays once again. How very kind. _

_Thanks for all the wonderful words over these past two weeks. I got knocked sideways by life, and your kindnesses kept coming about FF and it was pretty great. So here we go…. _

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Deep in the Heart of Me 12

I started the fight. It's always that in the end—who started it.

It doesn't matter if Utz stuck his face at me, I blocked Tillo and I shoved Utz. And I'll take my licks for it.

Miss Charlotte sends her class of younger students inside. The youngest have a different recess so they have witnessed our performance from their windows. That takes care of my sisters. What Elsie might overlook, if a thing is possible, they will be sure to fill in from three different honking beaks.

Sobe says, "Oh Tonio, you are bleeding," with the entire class watching.

She steps beside me, beautiful red splotches on her cheeks. She is looking at me like her father is not right there, and she pulls her hankie out of her sleeve, pink flowers on pure white and she brings it to the corner of my mouth and dabs, careful of touching me, just her finger wrapped in the hankie, but everyone is watching and we're all turned to stone, me first, a statue, but I feel protective of her, like she'll bring on their teasing for this, but I can't move.

When she pulls her hankie away from my face it is fouled with my blood.

"Oh Tonio," she says again looking up close like I'm her sweetheart just back from battle.

Well I did fight for my life when the two of them had me on the ground.

But I am feeling things. I won because I'm Tonio, but I won because she was watching. It made me better.

I'm more grown up than I knew. Perhaps I am so sweet on her. And if they tease her for this…they'll answer to me.

The sheriff clears his throat. "Sobe you need to listen to your teacher."

Miss Charlotte is organizing Halloran's students, getting them in lines and ready to move, and the sheriff is telling my brothers to wait near me. He has ordered Sobe inside yet again as she has touched the pocket nearly ripped off my shirt. She has put it in place and smoothed over it and it peels right off again and hangs by Mom's neat row of stitching like a thirsty dog's tongue.

But Sobe is also defending me, well us, to her father.

"We will talk when you get home from school, Sobe," her father says very firmly.

If my father spoke so to my sisters they would shut-up and do as he said. But Sobe is different. She is stubborn with the sheriff.

"Tonio and his brothers were defending themselves from these bullies!" she insists. "You don't know Dad. It didn't start out here, it started in the classroom."

"Sophia Bell," her father says.

"If I were a boy I would have fought them too!"

"Sophia," he says. "I saw you hand the broom to that one," he points to Jasper. "We will talk about it at supper tonight. Now get to your class."

She stomps her foot and looks fiercely at him. There is a fire in her. I know. I have it too.

His face is set but I get this notion he is surprised.

"You don't see, Dad," she says, her hands tucking into her waist. "Tonio was trying to make them stop. Go look at Mr. Halloran's classroom. They have it covered with spitwads. We told them to stop but they wouldn't. Mr. Halloran does nothing. He smells like elderberry wine!"

About that time Tillo lifts from the ground to a sit but he still isn't ready to get on his feet. Utz is quiet, holding a bandana to his forehead. Another guy from Dewberry stands with him and two more wait on the stairs. These are all ones I know. We go to church, we work each other's farms, we marry each other's sisters, and we hunt, we fight, we play ball, we compete at the fair and we live. We know all those around here. We do not fear them.

Jasper is still holding the broom. Too bad he can't ride it like a horse and get away from all this.

Miss Charlotte has sent the rest of our class back up the stairs to Mr. Halloran's room but a couple of the big boys don't go. Halloran has not made a show even though his class has pretty much gone to hell.

"Take them to jail," Miss Charlotte says coming down the stairs, "and anyone who has not gone to class." Then she hustles over to Tillo. "Can't you stand young man?"

Tillio gets on his feet then. He looks at me, then Jasper.

Miss Charlotte herds Tillo and Utz closer to the sheriff. Tillo takes hesitant steps. His willy must be connected to his spine to walk that way.

Miss Charlotte takes the broom from Jasper and uses it to shoo the other boys standing around, up the stairs.

I finally take Sobe's hankie cause she won't stop dabbing at me. It's crushed in my hand. I'm not in such bad shape and it doesn't bother me to bleed a little and…everyone is looking. I would smile at her, but her father….

"You boys shake hands," the sheriff tells me and mine and the Smiths.

Yes we should shake hands, but I'm not ready to kiss and kanoodle. I just got done getting choked and punched and scratched and kicked.

Sheriff is looking me in the eye. I wish Sobe would go in so I could speak my mind. I may want to court her when I figure things out, even though I'm not so old, but old enough, so I'm not sure what to say to the sheriff just now.

"I'm not sorry for my part, not any of it. And I'll do it again if I have to." I say this.

"If you have to," Sheriff repeats.

"Yes sir." I gesture to Tillo. Utz is just loyal to Tillo. So what I mean is…I'll fight Tillo if I have to and Utz too for good measure cause they're brothers and they come as a set. Everyone knows that.

"You, young man," Sheriff says to Tillo, wanting him to agree to shake.

Tillo hawks it up and spits it out. He sniffs and makes a distasteful mouth and he puts his hands on his hips and looks right past me. And I have to say, he's pale as a rule, and blond, and the sun doesn't bake him like you'd think by this time of year, and Utz is even lighter, but they are both more lily white than ever. I have to keep myself from smirking. Maybe I don't succeed cause Tillo does let his blue eyes set on me long enough to snort a little.

"You think this is funny?" Sheriff says.

I don't say what I think. Now that I'm looking over the two and seeing the damage, the bruise rising on Utz's cheek and the scrape on Tillo's forehead and his face red from my punches, mine. I am encouraged to cough into my fist at least, even though my knuckles are raw. I care not much at all if we shake.

"Maybe Miss Charlotte is right, " Sheriff says. "Maybe a night in the gaol is exactly what you boys need to straighten out."

"Emmett is ten," I say quickly. I'll go if I have to, but I don't like it close like that, but I'll do it. But Emmett is ten and Mom won't like it and that means my dad will raise hell.

"Maybe you need to teach him a better way to settle difficulties," Sheriff says thumbs under his belt.

He's not so tough. Sobe is still standing there.

"Do what you gotta to me and the rest. But he needs to go home. There's work," I say.

I know this, I'm not letting my little brother go to jail. That's what I'll teach this old man, Sobe's father.

"Can you be a good boy?" Sheriff says to Emmett.

Emmett is looking at me, his face set in that way when he's deeply disturbed. As in about to cry. But he won't. We're raised not to cry easy.

"He needs to get on home," I say quick. That's what he needs. A good run home will settle him and he can tell Dad we're in jail.

"Go on then," Sheriff says.

Emmett looks at me and I nod and he takes off then like his pants are on fire.

"Let's go to the car," Sheriff says.

"That's not fair Dad," Sobe says.

He turns away then and takes his daughter by the arms and bends a little to look in her eyes. I am gripping her hankie so fiercely my sore fist throbs. I can feel words coming and I try to swallow but my throat won't work.

He speaks low and intensely into her face and she looks away and he gives her a little shake and she looks at him then and she does swallow and lifts her chin and as he lets her go she pulls away and shakes her shoulders and she looks at me once and I know she's with me. That's all. Sobe is with me. She marches up the stairs and into the classroom.

Then he turns and motions we boys should go to the police car.

Jasper looks at me to tell him what to feel. That's how it is. If I'm not afraid, he is not. If I'm angry, he tries to be. If I'm in trouble, he's there, in trouble too.

Tillo and Utz get in the back and I make Jasper get in first in the front. Sheriff gets in.

It's a great Ford, well kept. We are all happy to be inside.

"Can it go over fifty?" Utz says and I want to know the same thing.

"Now why would I do that boys?" Sheriff says starting it up.

Utz and Tillo have a smell that is louder in here. Every year at school we get a talking to about being clean. They save that talk for when the big boys come back.

We don't need that talk, we have Mom and Granma and the gaggle to let us know if we offend. And there's plenty of homemade soap and clean clothes when we need them. But the ones who are raised in a barn, they never seem able to smell themselves.

I have my elbow propped on the door as the window is rolled down. I try to smell under my arm. I'm sweaty and a mess and I'm none too great and none too foul. I hope Sobe would agree. What if she just feels sorry for me? What if she thinks I'm rough or crude like Mom says about us boys, and she even says it about Dad sometimes, when he farts mostly, and blames us and we fight him on it and he won't admit it, or when he comes in sweaty and catches her in a big hug and she laughs and he lifts her off her feet.

I don't want to think about that. I'm still mad about the baby. He can't control himself to make another. I don't want him to get us out of jail. I'll get us out.

"This here the car like Bonnie and Clyde was killed in?" Utz says as we leave the school lot and head into town.

"Well they stole that car," Jasper said.

"Where'd you get a car like this?" Utz says.

"It sure rides smooth," Jasper says.

"It's got a V-8," Utz says like that explains it.

"I read where a car like this costs over eight hundred dollars," Jasper says seeming to forget we are on our ways to jail.

"How come you use your car for policework?" Utz says.

"He gets paid a stipend for it, ain't that right Sheriff?" Jasper says like this is a Sunday drive and we are sitting around chicken dinner.

"I got me a deal," Sheriff says.

I lean forward. If he's gonna answer questions then I ain't getting left out.

"You ever see a gangster?" I say cause I am always looking.

He side-eyes me. "Maybe I'm seeing one right this minute."

We don't laugh right off but then we do, and I stop when Utz grabs my shoulder and squeezes and it hurts like a s.o.b.. and I turn around ready to punch him one but the sheriff is ready to pull over so I just give him my meanest look and turn back around.

"What about Baby-Face?" Tillo says like he just caught lightening and got his willy healed. His big hand grabs onto the front -seat and he pulls forward. "I got a cousin in Indiana whose wife was in the bank in…."

"You don't either," I sneer. We done proved that story was a wicked lie behind the church last Sunday.

"The hell I don't," he says too loud for the sheriff seeing as Tillo is about six inches from the man's ear.

"Sit back and shut-up all of you," Sheriff about yells.

So we get quiet again. I sure as hell don't want to go to jail. I'm supposed to get to plowing soon as school's out. My dad is gonna knock the shit out of me.

But maybe he better not try.

I make a fist and I feel that little hankie in my hand and I nearly forgot. I take a look at old grump and he don't see and I slip that hankie inside my torn up shirt, under my undershirt next to me. See I do that and that old man don't know so I feel better after that.

She stood up to him for me. I don't need her to do that, but I'm glad she did. Now he thinks I'm a gangster and that don't feel so bad either. I settle back and fold my arms. Jasper looks quickly at me and folds his arms too.


	13. Chapter 13

Deep in the Heart of Me 13

We get to the jail and Sheriff drives around back where the yard is. Sometimes prisoners are held until the judge decides their fate or they are taken to Springfield.

This yard is a high fence with the boards tight against each other but plenty been in here and talked to their families through the cracks cause the boards have shrunk over the years and there are gaps big enough to see one eye up close at a time, or to pass a smoke. Course we have dared one another on some occasions to take a look in here without getting caught. The old sheriff didn't like it. But Jim says they held John Dillinger in here overnight and he came up here and looked right at him and Dillinger said, "Hey young man you got a smoke?"

Well I held his arm behind him until he took it back. God couldn't be that mean to let John Dillinger be held this close to our farm and me not get a look at him. But it was all lies. My dad said so too. Jim always has some big story about how we're missing out living on the farm.

So we follow the sheriff through the gate into the yard. He takes us in there and it's a first for me and Jasper. I don't believe Tillo and Utz have been in here either but they've surely been in the jail to haul their old man home.

So we walk through that scraped off yard and the sheriff knocks on the thick back door to the jailhouse and fat Ned lets him in. Fat Ned is the deputy that can't catch nobody if he even tries. So Sheriff tells Ned to lock us in one cell while he locks the Smiths in another.

Jasper is looking around and it's pretty disgusting in here, but not so bad. Two cots that come out of the wall and a bucket, then across the way the same.

"You boys let me know when you're ready to shake," Sheriff says rattling his keys before putting them on the hook. He hangs his hat after, and pours him a cup of coffee out of a speckled tin pot. He takes this to his desk.

"How long we gotta stay in for?" Utz asks.

"We'll see," Sheriff says, then proceeds to tell Ned what happened at the school.

I keep looking out across the room but that means I've got no one to look at but the Smiths and they are already hunkering down against the wall.

Jasper stands same as me. I can still hear the sound of this cell's door clanging shut. It's a terrible thing to be put in a cage, I can say that. But if Tillo can take it this quiet, then I can too.

"What you standing there for tauschens?" Tillo says to us.

"No talking," Sheriff says putting his feet up on his desk and leaning back in his noisy chair to sip that coffee.

So it's this way, him having his fun. Put the bad boys in a cell and scare the little gangsters straight? He doesn't scare me. I look at Jasper and nod I'll take one bunk. He should take the other. His hands come out of his pockets cause I'd been doing the same, and he looks at the cot, then me like I've made a mistake. But I go to my cot and I'm lying down and he turns slowly and does the same. We're going to take naps, like good little boys. We don't lie abed at home unless it's Sunday afternoon and then we never lie abed when we can be outside running through the woods. But Sheriff wants to give us a nightie-night, we'll take it then.

This blanket stinks, but so do the ones I take from the chest at home when I spend the night under the stars.

There is a board ceiling overhead. Some solid good carpentry in here. I fold my hands under my head and think of Sobe, right off. I must have looked pretty strong fighting two buffoons, well mostly, before my brothers came along. She seemed to be drawn to me anyway. I was dragged around a little, but I stayed fierce I think. I wish I could see it, so I close my eyes and try to imagine it in a very good way and I feel around on my head. I think I've had some hair ripped out and I'll have a shiner cause one eye is hard to open.

I have to smile because I'm thinking of Jasper with that broom. He reads those stories about knights and tells them to Emmett and me when we're trying to go to sleep. His voice is like a lullaby with those tales he has memorized. He wishes he was born then. He turns every hoe and rake on our farm into a sword. Many's the time I've fenced with him and I've given him worse than he ever gave me.

Sometimes I'm hard on him.

But he finally got to be Lancelot.

She gave him the broom. I've no regrets. She said she would fight too if she was a boy.

I'm glad she is not. A boy. I am the happiest over that.

Sophia Bell. It is beautiful. Like her. I like her. Everything about her. Her voice. Her guts. Her touch and the concern in her beautiful eyes. Sophia Bell. Next to Maman, she is the prettiest girl I've ever seen. In this whole county she is the prettiest. Maybe in the country.

How lucky that I would find the prettiest girl.

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"You put them in jail!"

It is Sobe. Her father is not here, just Fat Ned. I can't believe I actually slept. I am on my feet so quickly I barely have my good eye open.

"How could you do this!" she yells at Fat Ned setting her books on a bench.

He is flushing red. He gets off the chair I'd last seen the sheriff on. But there is no sheriff in here now.

"Now Miss you need to talk to your father about that. You need to go on home now."

"I will not go home." She marches to the hooks with the big iron key rings and keys. "I am putting an end to this foolishness," she says reading the tags on the rings and finding the one that suits her.

Ned goes to her and tries to take the keys away but she turns quickly and dances toward the door to my cell.

"Now Miss Sobe you need to give me those," Ned says fumbling toward her like she bites.

"No thank you," Sobe says looking briefly at me as she tries the first key.

"Miss Sobe," Ned says with more sand, "now you listen to me girl."

"You're gonna have to pull your gun and shoot me deputy," she says trying the second key.

"I'll shoot him," Ned says pulling his gun and waving it toward me which frankly makes me nervous, not what he says, but that he is dimwitted enough to point a weapon at me with his finger on the trigger.

Sobe stops what she's doing and looks at Ned.

"You let him out Miss Sobe, I'll shoot him."

"And I will testify that you shot an unarmed man and they will hang you by the neck until dead," she says back.

I have forgotten to say anything, well all four of us have watching this back and forth.

"Sobe," I do say.

"Your poor eye Tonio. Don't you worry, I'll have you and Jasper out in no time. Ned won't shoot you."

"Sobe," I say again, "put…put the keys back."

She ignores me and the lock clicks and she swings the door open. I glance at Jasper and his eyes are big as silver dollars.

"Well come out Antonio…Jasper," she says letting her arm swing wide.

Jasper looks ready to faint.

"We can't," I say.

"Well that's fine," she says. "I will just come in." And before I know what's what she pulls the keys from the lock and steps into our cell and slams the door again.

"Now Miss Sobe come out of there," Deputy says holstering his gun.

She holds up the keys and swings them a little. "Come and get me Ned."

I laugh some. We all do, even my brother puts his hand over a grin. Sobe is about the most amazing girl I ever knew.


	14. Chapter 14

Deep in the Heart of Me 14

"Sobe," I say.

"Don't tell me to let myself out Antonio. As long as you are in here, I am. He shouldn't play favorites, or spare me because I'm a girl. I hate that pretty much."

She is such a fierce little thing. Hand to the bible we are the same. Only I hold back, oldest of the herd, but Sobe does not.

"Your father will be angry," I say.

She disagrees, walking to the bed I vacated and plopping down. "You need a wet rag for your eye."

"You love him or something?" Utz calls out.

"Watch your mouth," I say like Utz has cursed at us.

"Why you like him so much?" Tillo says.

She pops up and marches to the bars. "You boys started the trouble and you never owned up. You let Tonio get all the blame. But I've made sure my father and Miss Charlotte know exactly what happened."

Then she turns to me. "He didn't even give you a chance to tell your side of it. He's bull-headed that way."

I suppose she means her father.

"I um…I'm no snitch," I say.

Her eyes grow…offended. She thinks I called her a snitch for setting the facts straight.

"Not you," I say. "I just don't say. I'm oldest. If something goes wrong it's my fault." I say this just for her but I know it travels.

Fat Ned is disgusted with the whole thing. He is back at the desk rooting through drawers.

"For Pete's sake," Sobe says observing Ned. She fishes the key out of her pocket and unlocks the cell door. "There."

Ned looks up and slowly shuts the drawer he'd been digging through.

Sobe goes back to my bed and sits. She folds her arms. "How can you take the blame for all of your brothers and sisters?"

"Miss Sobe come out of there," Ned says.

"I am staying here until my father comes. He'll see that door was open the whole time and he'll see these boys wouldn't even come out they are that good and fair. If I'd of opened their cell," she gestures toward the Smiths, "they'd of run into Sunday already."

"What she mean?" Utz asks Tillo.

"Running Sunday or something. I don't know," Tillo says.

"Now we can all just wait," she says like it's settled.

"Give me those keys, Miss Sobe," Ned says.

"Ned, you'll get apoplexy if you don't settle down." She stands and throws the keys out the door like she's rolling a ball. Now Ned will have to bend over for them.

"Ain't you worried your dad will get mad?" Jasper finally speaks up.

She smiles big. "I'm mad. Does anybody care?"

"I do," I say quick.

"What he say?" Tillo asks Utz.

"Clean out your ears!" Sobe yells.

Ned has gone back to the desk and hung the keys. He sits on the desk very worried it seems. "Soon as your father gets here Miss Sobe I am telling him what you've done."

"Ned," Sobe says with a laugh, "he sees his own daughter sitting in a cell he can put the clues together and solve the case."

There is no stopping Miss Sobe.

"What?" she says to me. I guess I'm gawking. I know I am.

"Nothing," I say. Then I smile.

"You look like you've been in a match Tonio," she sighs. "Does it hurt?"

"Nah," I say strong. Just saying that hurts my lips some.

"I got him good, the sissy, and I didn't need a broom," Tillo says.

"Two against one," Sobe says. "You think that's fair? Maybe in Dewberry but regular citizens call that low down!" Sobe says.

"Sobe," I say. I don't think girls are supposed to speak this way. The Smiths are rough people. She doesn't want them thinking she is not a sweet girl like Maman probably was. I know what I mean. When girls get in trouble, they need back-up. But Sobe doesn't have anyone but her father. Well now she has me. But I can't always…she needs to be careful. Does she have any fear?

"And Tonio won! He was beating the both of you!" she adds with her fist in the air.

"We got our licks in. He didn't get that eye from a bug bite," Utz says.

"Yes he did. A Dewberry cockroach," she says back.

I am staring at her. Soon as she says it she looks at me and gives me a smile. "You won Tonio. You're the best."

I look over there and Utz and Tillo are trying to keep up. She said all of this. I'm the best. She knows it.

I open and close my right hand. It's sore but I feel how strong.

She's so beautiful and she makes me feel so proud. But I know something about her, I feel it.

"Will you shake," I call to Tillo.

I need to end it. Sobe…it's for her.

"To get out," Tillo says.

"Yes," I say. "To get out."

"Are you sure, Tonio?" Sobe whispers. She is gripping the bars. I know she was just getting started.

But I nod. Sobe is good but there is trouble deep inside her. I am protecting her.


	15. Chapter 15

Deep in the Heart of Me 15

We hear the car pull up to the sheriff's office. And the truck. That would be my dad is my guess, and Jasper's guess too, from the big eyes he turns on me.

"You should step out and close the door, Sobe," I say.

"Tonio…," she says as I move her toward the door.

She studies my face.

"Step out and close the door, Sobe." I am not asking, but I am not rude. I am firm. That is what works on people and animals most of the time. My hand on her arm is firm and there is resistance, but she is allowing me to move her. I get her out enough I pull the door and there is that clank. She is looking at me, she is not speaking but in her mind there are many words, that's what I think.

"Don't tell him," I say to Fat Ned. There is no need to tell what is fixed now. Sobe is out and we are where the sheriff put us and the deputy does not look like a fool.

The door opens then and the sheriff is first with Dad behind. Sheriff holds the door and my dad steps slowly inside. I stand at the door of my cell, my hands on the bars. I meet Father's eyes. He'll remember if I do that, and if not I'll hear about it.

"Here they are Mr. Cullen," Sheriff says.

"Well," Dad says. "Will you look at that. I have to come out of the field and leave a day's work to get my sons out of jail. How is it their mother sends them to school and their father must come for them at the jail? It's a puzzle."

I do not speak. He is taking in the picture of his sons the convicts.

"If your grandmother could only see," he says.

I stand tall. Sobe is watching. My setting her out made her quiet.

"I'm ready to shake hands with Tillo and Utz," I say to the sheriff.

"Oh he's ready to shake hands," Dad says. "A moment to be proud of. My son the jailbird is ready to shake hands with the other jailbirds. How fancy fine. Look at the lot of you."

Dad spreads his scorn over the four of us.

"You two, doing your mother proud are you?" he says this to Tillo and Utz. "Otto needs the hardship of two worthless sons making the new classroom look like an outhouse with all the white daubs, does he?"

"No he don't," Tillo says, then Utz.

"Well you'll be scraping that classroom clean and you'll help my sons whitewash the school house starting this Saturday. You'll be there at sun-up and you'll work until it's done." Dad gets closer than ever to the cell housing the Smiths. "Don't disappoint me lads or your school days are over."

"Yes sir," Tillo says and Utz echoes the same.

"Okay Sheriff, let them out. I'm a busy man," Dad says.

Sheriff has yet to ask his daughter what she is doing here. Maybe he doesn't want to hear the answer.

Sobe says, "Hello Mr. Cullen."

"Miss Sobe," Dad says as Sheriff takes the key from Ned's willing hand.

"I suppose you know none of this is Tonio's fault," she says.

"We'll see Lass," Dad says.

"Well just in case Tonio doesn't want to snitch…," she shoots a look at me. I think she might be a little mad at me, but it's very confusing seeing as she also thinks I'm pretty great…or she did a minute ago, "So he'll probably leave a lot out."

"But his sisters won't Lass. That's the thing."

I step out of the cell then, and Jasper behind me. It feels so good to have freedom. The deputy has opened the Smith's cage and they step out and the evidence of having wrestled a hell-cat is on them. Dad says a man's actions speak louder than words. He won't have to wonder if I got my licks in.

Tillo puts out his hand and they are scratched up, but not as badly as my right. But I put my hand in his and he squeezes and I squeeze back and it's all I can do not to yell out from the pain. But I don't and we break apart.

Then I shake with Utz and Tillo with Jasper and Utz also squeezes too hard and I pull away catching a sneer and a dirty name just before I say it. I'm glad I beat them.

Then Jasper shakes with Utz and it's even.

"Back of my truck boyos," Dad says to the Smiths. "You've plenty of work to do at the school. And you two of mine in the truck."

"Do I have the word of you boys you'll not repeat what happened today?" Sheriff asks.

We are still. I see Sobe's bright expression as she waits for me to speak.

"I can't say that Sheriff. I was taught to stand up for myself," I say.

Sobe breaks into quick happy clapping. "You see Dad? You don't know Tonio."

I am breathing through my sore mouth. I think my nose is broken anyway. But this Sobe, she just speaks out. And she's not even shy.

"You have it then Sheriff," Dad says and he goes to the door and pulls it wide.

"No more Mr. Cullen, not from either of yours. I find there is more trouble they are out for good. Same goes for the Smiths if you see their dad."

"You'll be seeing him all right," Dad says hand holding the door wide while he makes a sweeping motion with the other. "Friday nights in particular, eh boys?"

The Smiths do not answer. They are the first to go out. Jasper then. I look at Sobe.

"Good-bye Antonio. You need that cold rag," she says.

I nod, looking quickly from her father to her.

She takes some quick steps forward and before our Dad's and Fat Ned and myself she reaches up and whispers in my ear, "Do you have it still?"

Have it? I look quickly at her father again. He is not amused by this.

She must mean that hankie. I'm not pulling it out in front of them all and it's disgusting now anyway what with my blood. But I pull back and look at her and nod.

She smiles and I am struck again by her beauty. She looks like a porcelain doll. But alive. Very alive.

"Your mother is waiting," Dad says from behind.

I lose my smile then. Maman. One look at me and she will have plenty to say.


	16. Chapter 16

Deep in the Heart of Me 16

"I think it's broken," I say tenderly touching my nose.

"Did it knock some sense then?" Dad says at a glance. We have just dumped Tillo and Utz at the school so they can begin the long task of cleaning.

"What if they don't do it?" Jasper asks.

"They are out," Dad says backing up the truck. "As it should be."

My dad is a hard-driving man. He must be, I know this. The family depends on it, and there is nothing more important than the family. Maman says this, too. But for Dad it's the land. So they check each other, they pull at each other the way the river pulls at the black bottom soil. Some years the land wins and we can farm those rich sections. Other years the river won't budge and we give up hope of planting a crop. But it's close like that. It's life.

"Did Shaun come on time?" I ask. We milk at four on the dot. Morning and evening. If milking time is missed production changes, and not for the good. With school starting Dad has to hire more help. Hence Shaun, the young married man that lives on the edge of our property. Shaun lost his wife last spring. Her and the baby. She was nice. I don't want to think about it but maybe I think about it too much.

We should have been home on time. Emmett would have been there to bring in the cows, but milking forty head takes young and strong shoulders. And young and strong knees.

Dad leans forward and looks past me at Jasper.

"Had a day boyo."

"Yes sir," Jasper says, then he looks at me with sympathy. To be the oldest son means to take the brunt. The others learn from it.

"I've no time for this," Dad says next, shifting the truck. "I told you both you're better off in the fields. Boy gets old enough he's too grown to sit in a desk all day when he should be working. Everything you need to know is on the farm. Did I not say that?" he repeats like he's speaking to an argument in his head, one that was waged by Mom wanting her boys to have more school.

"Yes sir," I say.

"Yes sir," Jasper says.

"I have to leave Tibby in harnass…."

It is my job to tear up the front field, not Dad's. I am failing him.

"Well?" Dad says looking quickly at me. Oh so now I can talk I guess.

I'm not sorry, that's the thing. Maybe he should apologize first…for what he did to mother.

"I'm sorry Dad," I say. We don't have to ask Dad forgiveness. We just do that around Mom.

"Sorry Dad," Jasper echoes.

"Well we're all a sorry bunch here. A sorry bunch." He straightens up and shifts again.

"Well…I fought two," I say.

He looks at me. "Should I give you a medal then?"

I refuse to deflate. "I don't want a medal," I say.

"He did Dad. He fought hard and he had those two," Jasper says and it's a bold thing.

Dad looks at the road. "Two on one?"

"Yes sir," I say, hopeful even though I don't want to be. I'm mad at him. Very angry.

Dad sniffs. "Tell me."

We tell him then, every scrap as we remember. Jasper knows more than me. He's uncanny that way, for details. I think it's one of the ways he's learned to best me, but if he were oldest he'd understand I have to look at everything very quickly for the good of us all.

"Well I'll be damned," Dad says when we're done. I can't help grinning at Jasper even though it hurts my lips and starts fresh blood.

Then he spoils it like always. "Imagine what we could get done on the place if you put that strength to good use."

I do deflate a little. Maybe I'm tired in spite of my nap in the gaol. I work hard on the farm. I always have. Since three years old when they started me pulling weeds in the garden.

But nothing is ever enough for him.

"Did you break your right hand?" he asks.

It is rather large. I make a fist.

"It'll be all right," he says.

"We're sorry about the trouble Dad," Jasper says again.

"Sorry is as sorry does. You'll work in the dark tonight boyo."

"Yes sir," Jasper says and he deflates too. I don't know why. We work in the dark morning and night.

"One more mess and you're both out of school. Way I see it, that shouldn't be hard for two knuckleheads like youse."

I sneak a look at Jasper. He's as befuddled as me.

We ride a little bit but we've already reached our lane. The milk sits in the cans waiting for the truck to pick it up.

"Dad, are you saying…," I try.

"I'm not saying anything but this. I went to the sixth grade. You've both gone past. I sit on that board because…your mother. But they kick you out your mother can't argue with that. One more mess they said. Well show them you've outgrown school, my boys. We've work to be done for the family."

I look at Jasper again. There's nothing in his face but hope. He doesn't like school at all, and you think he would, but now that we're separated it seems worse than before. If I do this, he would be happy. He'd have the farm and his books and me in his sites. It's all he wants.

But is it all I want?

That Sobe Bell. She makes me want more. She makes me want…her.


	17. Chapter 17

Deep in the Heart of Me 17

"Antonio, Antonio." She holds my chin by the tips of her fingers. My plate of supper is on the table. I have worked through time to eat. Normally missing supper is only allowed for planting or harvest, but tonight is an exception. I am anxious to see how straight I've cultivated that field come morning.

She should be in bed, my Maman. But she has waited up for me. Her hair is gathered in a bun but the rest poofs around her face like a greater bun, a pin-cushion of hair, thick and to her waist when she lets it down and the girls fight to brush it.

My Maman is beautiful, but she looks worn out as she peers in my face and says my name.

Sobe also calls me Antonio sometimes. I don't think Mom will like it. But I won't tell her.

The skillet is on the stove and she has a rice bag heating. I remove my shirt and my undershirt and my secret flutters to the ground and it takes me aback cause I'd forgotten it was there, but just seeing it I remember.

Maman looks at it with me.

I bend slowly and clumsily snatch it up.

"It's…."

"You put this in your shirt my son? So special?"

"I…have to return it. It belongs to…."

"It's hers. The pretty Sobe. She is all I hear about—Sobe this and that…my son is…?"

"You were thirteen when you met Dad."

"It was different."

"How? I just like her."

"But…you are too young to court."

"I don't…."

"Is she Catholic? I hope not."

"No…I…don't know," I say.

"She will want things."

"Want…what things?"

"A girl like her…does she know farming?"

"I like Sobe."

"Give it to me. It will have to soak. You can't return it like that."

I put Sobe's hankie in my pocket. I look at Mom, then I sit on the chair like an old man. Like my old man who is snoring beyond the door to their room.

"So it's that way, eh?" she says.

I act like I don't hear.

My arms are so tired from fighting and plowing I let them hang at my sides. I'd like to put my hands in my lap but I don't think I can. Not this minute anyway.

She has given me aspirin and looked me over from the waist up. I have hurt my knee but it will be mine to fix for I am too old to be dropping my pants in front of her like I'm Pee-Wee. She is upset over my clothes, their state, but I am her bigger concern. A hot wet rag for my face. I am happy to let her boss me. I tip back my head and let the heat seep into my brain. She pulls a chair close either side of me and two bowls of hot water with dissolved aspirin and she takes my hands, one then the other and places them in the bowls and I hiss it feels so right.

I fall asleep. I realize this when she pokes me and I catch myself before falling off of the chair. I pull my hands from the water and rip the rag from my face. "Maman," I say. I thought I was suffocating.

It worries her. It worries me. I've had a bad dream before, but this was quick and frightening as if the dark feel of it has followed me into our kitchen.

"Tonio?" she says. "When did you eat last?"

"Breakfast," I say. I'd missed lunch for obvious reasons, and I'd been in the field during supper.

She pushes the plate to me. "Eat. Your body plays tricks when you're hungry."

I lift the fork and the pain is dulled, but not the effort to move my arm. My shoulders feel the horse. Many a day I spend in the field. We put up hay all summer long, by Sunday church my arms are sore and all I can do is thank God there is no work but the milking, and feeding. It is a rest for Monday when it all starts over even though it never stopped.

So I know what it is to be too tired to bring my fork to my mouth. But tonight, when I do, my mouth is another problem with a cut on my lip and open sores inside my jaw from Tillo's fist.

She watches me eat. "You're almost a man," she says.

I am a man. She needs to catch up.

"Ragazzino," she says.

"No," I say, shake of the head as I finish my gravy.

"Always," she says, but it isn't true. I am grown and she has a passel of others.

"I am staying home the rest of the week to help Dad. I went back too soon," I say.

Her fingertips on my sore chin again.

"It looks worse than it is," I say bravely, but in truth it can't look as bad as it feels or she'd be screaming.

"You'll go back on Monday?"

"Saturday. I have to paint," I say.

I have to get word to Sobe. I'll be at the school house for many long hours. The work will go better if she is there. That's what I might say.

"You have secrets my son," Mom says.

I look at her as well as I can with one tired watery eye. It's been a long time since I told her everything.


	18. Chapter 18

Deep in the Heart of Me 18

I have sent a note by Emmett's hand. I know he keeps nothing from his twin without great effort, but I have warned him in this case it is to go to Miss Sobe and no one else first for a reading.

I had labored over the simple message, ruining the paper Mom gave me and having to get more. So finally it was ready, Dear Sobe, it read, then Dearest Sobe, then Sobe, then Sobe Bell. Then To Sobe Bell.

I wrote: I have ruined your handkerchief but if you can meet me at the schoolhouse Saturday where I will be painting all day, I will pay you what you think it is worth so you can buy another.

Then, Sincerely yours, Tonio Cullen, then Your Friend Tonio, then Yours Truly, T. Cullen, then Tonio.

By Saturday I am painting and watching. For Sobe. I have thought the note was stupid, not the sending it, but the wording. She knows I will see her on Monday at school. But maybe she doesn't know that. Not unless Elsie told her. And they are becoming fast friends, those two, and what Sobe Bell has heard by now is anyone's guess.

So here I am painting. Utz has shown and Tillo is late. Utz hitched a ride on the milk truck like Jasper. When Tillo comes he'll hear my mind on it. It was my punishment first, but his second, added by the schoolboard.

Dad needs us in the field and here we are, Jasper and me, but Tillo is not carrying weight. I have assigned each of us a side. I told Dad my plan. The paint was dropped off the night before but I rode Tibby so I could milk and clean pails as Shaun must have tied one on he was that late.

And Dad said my plan was right and Tillo's side is sitting naked as Adam before sin.

So I'm painting away already and it's not bad work but my shoulders are sore and I'm working quietly on a wooden ladder which is squeaking against the siding.

Jasper comes around the corner, paint splattered on his bibs. "Tillo is here."

"He get started?" I say.

"I showed him."

I just keep going, no wish to waste this trip up the ladder. Jasper disappears. I am setting an example, a relentless pace. We get this done today because tomorrow is Lord's day and Monday I plan to be back in school.

They have given Mr. Halloran an absence. An old teacher was brought in but come Monday there is a new one coming from Springfield. It doesn't matter to me. Halloran was drunk, like Sobe implied with the smell of wine. Maman says we must have compassion, he had a loss or something.

So I am painting and wondering again if Sobe will come. In truth the hankie is stained with my blood still and I've made no attempt to wash it. But I want to keep it. That's all. And I will buy her another. I hope to.

If she ignores my note, well I'll never mention it or bother her again. Come Monday I already know I'll show not one care. I won't make a fool of myself more than I already have.

I am thinking like this as I jump the last few rungs from the ladder, holding my smaller pail that is empty of paint.

And there she is, just like that. She scares me actually, but I don't jump. I just stare.

She is dressed in britches. Her legs are…there. She is cute and beautiful. Her hair is braided and she wears a jacket, old and threadbare like one of the migrant's. It is so large, sleeves rolled up, it must be her father's.

She is holding a brush. She lifts this and waves it at me. "Good morning Tonio.

"Tonio?" she says cause I lose words I'm that surprised.

"I'm going to paint," she says.

"I ah…I didn't mean…."

"I didn't bring a pail."

"I have another," I say, not meaning I want her to do this. But I do.

We go to the big bucket and I get the pail meant for Tillo but since he never came around and asked for it, it's Sobe's now, though I doubt she can paint as much as he might if he puts his self into it.

I carefully pour paint from the big bucket into the smaller one. I don't give her too much and she says, "More than that." So I increase it, but still not as much as I'd give myself or the others.

"You'll get paint in your hair," I say. I go to the rail where I've laid my jacket and get my hat out of my pocket. I don't want paint on this hat, but it's old, and the knights in the stories laid their cloaks in mud. So I bring her my hat, but I sniff it along the way because I've never thought about it smelling or something. But it is fine.

"Here," I say.

She takes the hat and grins at me and puts it on her head. It's only a little big, well it goes over the tops of her ears, and it only makes her more…whatever she is, which is…appealing.

"Thank you Tonio," she says.

Well, we're not getting anything done this way. So I carry her pail near where I work. "You can do low and I'll do high," I say.

She laughs a little. I want to ask what's so funny, but I ignore it and just wonder. Is she laughing at me? I don't know.


	19. Chapter 19

Deep in the Heart of Me 19

"Your face looks better," she says, looking up at me. "Whoops, I just painted a spider. Forever more he's immortalized in the whitewash."

I have been looking down at her too much. My neck is starting to throb but…immortalized in the whitewash? Girls.

"You look like your mother you know," she says.

There I go looking down at her again. Is that a good thing in her eyes?

And she is laughing at me, all the time. It's just her way, I think, being happy.

"You don't talk much," she says. She is not looking at me now, she's painting.

I can talk a lot if I get going. When I'm in the mood. I just don't know what to say yet. I have questions. Like, where is her mother? Like where did she live before this? Does she like it here?

Does she like me?

She seems to.

I clear my throat. "Do you like horses?"

She starts to giggle. "I like your horse."

She has said that already. I guess when you've got a fine new Ford to tool around in you don't have to give horses a thought.

Now I don't know what else to say. It's like I have no imagination or something.

"We're making good progress," she says.

I haven't checked on the others. Tillo never did come looking for his bucket, but Jasper has told me he's working. I know he can work if he wants to. But he's a lazy cuss by nature.

I slap the horse-hair at the last bits in my bucket and finish the eave. Then I climb down. "Time to eat," I say.

"Oh. I didn't bring anything," she says standing. She has paint on her cheek and speckles on her nose.

"You can share. I mean I can. We can." I turn from her and close my eyes. What am I saying?

I go for Jasper's knapsack to see what he brought us. Apples of course, but there is only one. All the apples we have at the house and he brings one?

She is beside me and I hand it to her. "Is it your only one?" she says.

"It's all right. You can have it."

"No. We'll share."

"I don't want it."

"But, I'll take the first bite and you can have the second. Like that."

"Here," I say taking the apple. I get my knife out of my pocket, pull the blade from the bone handle. I slice the apple in half and tell her to hold one piece while I put away the larger blade and pull the smaller slender one. I proceed to cut a circle around the core and remove it. I hand her that coreless half and take the other and do the same to it.

"Thank you Tonio," she says sinking her straight white teeth into the flesh. It makes a crisp sound and I don't know when I've been so happy to do this. More happy than when I do it for Pee Wee.

She smiles at me. "It's very sweet," she says chewing. Then, "Aren't you going to eat yours?"

Of course I am, I was just…watching her for a minute.

I slice mine and eat it off the knife.

"Did you ever kill anything with it?"

"Huh?"

"With your knife."

I have, but I'm not going to tell her about it. I don't think I am.

I still hold two bowl shaped sections of core. "Watch this," I say, and I walk over to Tibby and she follows me. I hold my palm to Tibby's mouth and she noisily crunches the treat.

"Her teeth are so big," Sobe says.

"She's a horse."

"Are you afraid of her?"

"Of Tibby?" I frown.

"Do you have a sweetheart?"

What? I stare at her again. She is serious.

"Elsie says…."

"Don't talk to her about me," I say and it's too stern. I just meant…don't talk about me.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I…don't have a …."

"Elsie says…well I'm sorry, but you're her brother. She said girls go sweet on you all the time. Even in first grade."

"I don't like them," I say. I don't like them?

"Oh. Well…you're not afraid of anything, are you?"

"I don't know. No."

"I think you're brave. The bravest boy I know."

I go to the sack to see what else my brother brought us. Biscuits and bacon. In a clean cloth there are four. Two each. I give one to Sobe.

"But…is there enough?"

"Yes," I say. I like giving her this.

"You are brave," she repeats.

"Sometimes," I say just because I should say something.

"Not always?"

I think of the dream where I couldn't breathe. "I don't know. Dad says…I have to think before I do something." I'm not saying it right. I mean…I'm learning to think. Maybe not first, but eventually.

"I don't have a beau."

I am looking intently. I can't believe she just blurts things. "Have you? Had one?" I don't want her to be fickle. If she is…I don't know what I'll do about it.

"Lots of them. In Springfield. I was glad we moved away."

Lots of them? I don't care for that. I guess she is fickle then. Well maybe she couldn't help it. Dad said Mom had many suitors wanting her hand. I guess when you're beautiful. And Sobe is.

"You're from that big town?"

"City," she laughs. "Me and Abraham Lincoln."

"He's not from there," I correct.

"Well, in 1844 he was," she answers taking a bite of her biscuit.

"Why did you leave?'

"My dad. He thought it would be better."

"Is it? Better?" I also take a bite of my dinner.

She swallows and licks her lips. "This is so good!"

"Mom. She makes the biscuits."

Sobe licks her paint splattered fingers. "So good."

"Is it better?" I repeat.

She shrugs and takes another big bite. "Yes."

"Do you have…family here?"

She swallows. "No."

"Where are they? Your family."

She holds the last bite before her lips. "Just Dad." Then she pops that last bit in and chews. She is girlish in the way she eats. Proper. She is better than me. Than mine. Maman has manners, and the girls, they are not quite like Sobe.

"You look at me," she grins.

I look away, at the trees.

"You can," she says. "It's not a sin."

"A sin?" I say, and I might be embarrassed now.

"Do you like to look at me or something?" she says.

I can't believe she's asking.

"Why do you say I'm brave?" I ask.

"You stood up to the teachers and to those boys."

"Your dad is sheriff."

"But he has a gun. You just have…you," she says.

I also have my knife. And I have my fists and my wits. I am brave. It's my job.

"You stood to Ned," I say.

She just shakes her head.

I don't like her being hard against herself.

She looks at me then. "It's because of you, Antonio. You make me brave."

Her eyes are deep and something…pretty but…there's gold or something bright. I don't know what I'm feeling. But it gets in me then. Something. For Sobe.

She decides we must get back to work and I must check on the others. Tillo has made much progress for all he was late. We've got nothing good to say to one another. Utz works with him instead of where I said to work and I'm ready to be mad but Utz has given a good start to the side he'd been on before Tillo arrived. And others are arriving to help, members of the school board and some of their sons. Soon we all have extra hands and Sobe and me are able to turn the rest of our side to new helpers while we move to aid Jasper. It's supper time when we finish.

I wash our brushes in turpentine and wrap them in cloth. Jasper is taking them home, even Sobe's. She insists she doesn't want the smelly thing. She'd found it in the basement of her house.

"I'll ride you on Tibby," I tell Sobe. Since she's a townie she lives close. I've been in her house many times when Daniel lived there.

I pull to the rail for tying horses and buggies and she scrambles there and I give her my hand and she gets on behind me. There is no saddle, just a blanket. Tibby works hard and I didn't want her to stand in saddle all day. But her back is wide and she's gentle.

Sobe is behind me but she is close. I move Tibby from the rail and I feel Sobe's hands clutch at my sides.

"She's tall," Sobe says. She scoots closer. I am dizzy for a moment. I have ridden like this almost soon as I could walk, but it is different with Sobe.

I'm stealing time from chores, but I've no regrets. People might see us and think we're sweethearts but I can't fix that. Dad will be setting the cans about now. Emmett is there and Shaun. I'm guilty but the damn farm pulls at me my whole life. It wants every part of me.

Sobe takes her hand away and brushes at my shoulder. "A grasshopper," she says.

I wait for her hand to return to me and it does.


	20. Chapter 20

Deep in the Heart of Me 20

We are too soon at Sobe's house. I must get home, but I don't want it to be over with her.

"How do I get off?" she asks meaning how does she get off this tall horse.

"I will hold your hands," I say turning around, "and slide you down."

I do that. She is light but I am sore, but I know how to hold weight even when I hurt and I'd never let her fall, not in a million years.

I slowly lower her to her feet and she lets go of my hands. "Thank you," she says looking up at me. "I would offer you supper but I'm a terrible cook."

"You should come to the farm. Elsie will show you," I offer.

"She says that. She invited me today…but…." She holds up her small hands and spreads her fingers.

It makes me smile. Her hands are ruined with paint.

"Turpentine," I say.

She breathes in. "Tonio…I will see you tomorrow at church."

"You're Protestant?"

"Yes," she says.

"You will then," I say.

"I have invited Elsie to sit with Dad and me. She's asking your mother today." Then she snatches the hat from her head. "Oh, and this."

I stay on Tibby to make myself go home. I reach for the hat and she keeps hold, so both of us hold it now.

"Tonio…I meant what I said. You make me brave."

I pull the hat free so I can straighten. I put it on my head now.

"It looks better on you," she says with a big smile.

"Are you scared of something?" I ask.

She grows serious.

"The boogey man?" I say but she does not smile. Matter of fact I see tears.

"Tonio…I didn't have lots of beaus. I…don't know why I said it. I…wanted you to think…I wanted you to think I was…normal."

I'm of two minds. Ride off. Or get off.

My leg swings over Tibby's neck and my boots hit the ground. I keep the reins and thread them over Tibby's head as I round her nose. I am facing Sobe now. She is sniffling.

"I lie, all right Tonio? I'm a liar." There are more tears now, angry ones.

I don't know what to say. "The good book says all men are liars. Only God is true."

She sniffs and wipes her nose on the big jacket. "I'm mad at God. Oh I'll go to church all right, and wear my new dress and look all nice. But inside I'm shaking my fist at Him."

"At God?" I say. And she claims she's not brave.

She doesn't answer, and that's probably best. I don't know what blasphemy is, but I'm thinking about it right now and that's not good.

"I get tired of being good sometimes," she says, so sincerely I nearly step closer.

"Sobe…will you tell me the truth from here on?"

She looks at me, and I'm not blind to the hope I see there. "From here on I will Tonio. I promise." She crosses her heart.

I can't keep looking at her. It wouldn't be right to touch her and I don't know what to do with the wanting I feel.

I look at the house and I see no evidence that her father is home.

She sees me looking at the dark house and she takes steps toward it. "Well if you could wait a minute, I'll see that the house is good and empty. Could you do that Tonio?"

"Sobe," I say, "are you scared to go in there?"

"No." She closes her eyes. "Yes."

For heaven sakes. I tie Tibby to the gate and I walk ahead of her. It's dusk but there is still light and nothing ever happens around here.

"Let me look," I say. I do not do this for my brothers and sisters. If they are scared I tell them to stop being foolish. Especially Jasper, I'm hardest on him. But Sobe's fear is something else. That's all I know.

I get to the door and she is behind me. I go in and the house smells different than ours. It's stuffy and…lifeless. Even when Daniel lived here it was welcoming at least with the old grandmother.

Oh there are nice things. I see that right off. But no…heart? Echoes. I don't even know if our house…echoes.

I walk through the rooms, the wood floors creaking under my boots. She has a piano.

"Yes I play, but not very well," she says.

"My mother plays…she did." Maman's hands, she says they are not what they used to be.

"I'll go up and look," she says. "Will you wait while I do?"

I nod and we go back to the hall and she takes off the big coat and hangs it on the halltree. She smiles at me as she passes but it's not her mischievous smile, it's sad. She is cute in the britches and her form is very small, but…what am I thinking. I watch her go up and try not to have an opinion.

I hear her light step overhead and she is quickly coming back down. "It's fine," she says.

"Are you alone so much?" I say. I can't imagine being so alone. All the time alone. I envy it and I don't.

I hear a car stop out in the street.

"That's Dad," she says and there's relief in her voice.

It occurs to me now. I'm alone in his house with his daughter. If I came on this, if I were him, I wouldn't like it.

She steps around me and opens the door. She is blocking me from leaving, and I want very much to go.

But I am brave. She said so. I pull off my hat. I should have done that before. But now I remember. Now I think of it.

I am making that hat go round and round in my hands as he brings his poker face up the walk and into the house.

"That's that mare of your father's," he says.

"Yes sir," I say. I'm not a horse-thief.

"And what's all this then?" he says, eyes on her.

He is taking in his daughter, paint-splattered and eager as she seems. If he tries to punch me I hope he goes for my chin and not my nose.

"Tonio was looking through the rooms…I was…it's nearly dark," she says.

He looks to me, up and down, then back to her. "You've been painting," he says.

"I asked you…," she says.

"I know. I know." He puts his hand on Sobe's shoulder. "I may be working but I always know where you are."

He says this to me. About her. Or himself.

I don't have a word to say back.

"Did you finish then?" he says.

"Yes sir."

"Good enough. Are you going back to school?"

"Yes sir. Come Monday. Until butchering. Then…."

"You will come back, won't you?" Sobe says to me.

The sheriff is watching me the way I watch game before I shoot.

I don't know yet. My father…well I'm walking a line here, a catgut line.

He takes his hand from Sobe's shoulder and extends it to shake mine. Mine are not as sore as they were and anyway, Dad would kill me if I gave a weak hand to anyone, so I take his firmly, paint and scabbed knuckles and palm and fingers like leather, and I shake it like I mean it.

Sheriff laughs. "A grip you boys got."

Well I'm no sissy.

"I'll walk you out," he says.

I look quickly at Sobe. She smiles and I see sympathy.

Oh, here it comes.


	21. Chapter 21

Deep in the Heart of Me 21

"Good-bye Tonio," she says as her father is closing the door. I do not even get a chance to say good-bye.

I walk toward Tibby and Sheriff is a little behind me. "I'm going to be frank young man. I've asked around about you and you're a good sort. Hell of a baseball player from what I hear."

He heard that? I am pretty good. I'm very good in fact, not that there is time to play much, but I make my mark. I'm not as good as Shaun.

"Seems Sobe is taken with all of you. She's…had it hard losing her mother."

"How long ago?" I say before I can think. This is what Dad means.

"This is the second year," he says.

"How…." Maybe it's too much, asking this.

"Sudden. Very sudden. We don't like to talk about it. Don't bring it up to her."

I don't know why or how I feel his lack of…honesty. Is lying the family way? I hope not. She said she would not lie to me.

"I…am sorry," I say, as I've been taught. I put on my cap.

"Sobe is taken with your family. I've often wished she had a big brother…not that I'm giving you the job, understand. She is a young lady and…she is a fragile person."

Sobe…fragile? I think of her tears. But they all cry. Girls do. They don't have pride about that.

"You are aware they are the weaker sex?" he says.

"Gentler," I say. "My dad says gentler." I have never seen Maman weak. Nor Granma.

"It's the same," he says.

"It shouldn't be." I am thinking of the animals. Gentle and weak are very different. I think it's the other way. We try not to be weak for them. We try to live up to them. I've heard Dad say to Mom, he doesn't know where he would be without her. I've heard him say that more than once through the boards of my floor.

"You're a ball-player and a scholar? I didn't know someone could be such a trouble-maker at school and be a know-it-all, son."

"I just mean…if a horse is gentle, it doesn't mean she is weak. They're not anything alike—those words."

It's funny how I've been tongue-tied around Sobe, but I have no fear of speaking my mind to her father. I have one to knuckle under to and he's at the farm probably ready to work me to midnight for not coming home, but this one, he put me in the gaol once, but he can't arrest me for having an opinion.

"She has asked to spend time on your farm and I think it will be good for her. But I'm counting on you to always be a gentleman."

There's that word again. Gentle. I will be gentle with her. But I wonder how well he knows his daughter. She may be fragile, she may be troubled, but Sobe Bell is hardly weak. She's far too grand for that.

"I wouldn't hurt Sobe," I say. "I was in the house for five minutes. She was scared."

He has his chin tucked and he's weighing my words. "If I thought different it would be different. Right now."

I swallow. I realize my hands are in fists and I make an effort to uncurl them.

He takes in a breath. "I'm just looking out for my little girl. She's all I have."

"Yes sir," I say. "I have to get home."

I untie Tibby and leap easily onto her back.

He slaps her rump and says he'll see me in the morning at church.

I guess he knows all about my family. That's how it is around here.

I touch the bill of my cap. It's not him I'll be watching for.

He's got a daughter who is raising her fist to God and tired of being good.

And he has no notion of it.

But I am aware of Sobe Bell. And so I best him.


	22. Chapter 22

Deep in the Heart of Me 22

The ride home is not long enough for all I have to ponder about Sobe Bell. The pleasant feel of her hands on my sides and herself riding behind me on Tibby for all the world. Her voice and laugh. Her pretty self and the many different ways she looks according to what she's doing or saying or thinking. She is interesting. I have never been so interested. I painted the whole side of a schoolhouse and I have barely any memory of the work, I just know it went too quickly.

The sun is going to drop and it will be night. Maman will light the lamps and my father will curse me under his breath. He is either ready to burst with pride over me or ready to kill me. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground these days.

But I don't care like you'd think. I did right.

Emmett is by the road at the stand bringing in the cans from this morning's milk. "Dad is looking for you," he says.

Dad is looking for me. It's nearly the last thing any of us ever wants to hear. That and, "Jesus is up in the sky."

Well I would be late all over again, that's what I know.

I drop off of Tibby's back and tell Emmett to turn her into the paddock so she can eat clover under this full moon.

He is happy to do that and I pull the skid with the rattly cans. This milk means a check every week. It's the thing that keeps the farm going. Well that and money from the gas, let's not forget it. My dad and my uncles haul gas from the railroad to the station where Uncle Frank sells it in Maumen. It has set us apart and bred our arrogance, some say, for the Cullens have gone from making three cents profit on a gallon to a dime.

Crops pay but once a year, eggs by the month, but milk means a check as regular as Friday. So our nest is well feathered, but of course it's never enough.

Dad is in the milking barn when I bring in the cans. He doesn't look at me, though he hears and sees.

I approach him, shoving my splattered and battered hands in my pockets.

He finishes writing in the notebook by the light of the lamp.

"I finished at the school," I say.

He closes the book and removes his glasses rubbing the indented places on his nose. "Shaun didn't come in. Your mother…go get him."

I do not relish this. I never do. "Is he at home?"

"Take Tibby and the wagon."

"Yes sir."

"Pack him up. We're moving him to the bunkhouse."

"Does…does Shaun know this?"

"He will."

He will? I can only hope he's passed out when I get there then. "Can I take Jasper?"

"No. Do it alone."

That means Jasper is doing my work and they have split Shaun's. If Shaun is passed out he'll be like four sacks of feed rolled into one drunk boyo. But if he's awake he might fight. I nearly sigh. I am on too thin ice to sigh loudly. Getting Shaun is how Dad is dealing with me. But when you look at us, who better—my sisters?

"Good work at the school," Dad says gathering the books and not looking at me.

I can't believe my ears.

"Thank you," I say trying to sound like he compliments every day when I'm expecting trouble.

"My son is first on the job and last to leave," he says, a true smile for me.

I am nearly ashamed. This is where I should say he got it wrong. I was…courting? But I only nod. And I go out.

1111111111

The ground is soft, but there is a worn path between our house and the tenant house on the edge of the field. With the moon I can see very well. I have my shotgun under the seat. There are many about these days and I'm sort of on the lookout when I think about it.

I wonder if Sobe would be scared out here or is it only the insides of shadowy houses that scare her? Sheriff takes her by car to school, but she walked to the schoolhouse today. To see me. I invited her. I didn't care if she helped or not. I'm not like Dad, looking for a mule.

I see a red fox run across the plowed furrows. He disturbs a group of does gleaning.

Soon as we harvest we spread manure and plow. Sometimes we spread more manure after then in spring we plow again and we plant. We pull from this earth and Dad says there is no boss like it, none as cruel and unfeeling, he says, as the land. I eye him when he says that.

My mind flips through so many things. I wonder what Sobe ate for supper. I have not eaten. If I would have gone to the house Mom would have given me something, but with it her worry for Shaun. He is a distant relative, a second cousin is what we call him. Maman's brood are all girls so they've followed husbands across three states. Dad's are around us spread out over two counties. Well all but the one sister in Arkansas. Somehow Shaun is tied to her, but not by blood. Shaun found his way to us. He was newly married. And I don't want to think on all of it.

They come for work. An endless stream. And food. Sometimes they have wagons piled with goods and family, sometimes it's a truck and even when they are Negroes, they look like us. Just like us and if you can't see the sameness, you're blind cause they gobble Maman's sandwiches as fast as anybody.

"Our people work," Dad says. I think he says it to keep the hard times off of us.

But Maman rebukes him when he says that. Others do not have work. Mom keeps it before us, how blessed we are in these times, but Dad grouses about the government stepping in.

President Roosevelt put many young men to work in the CCC. Including veterans of the Great War who flocked to those camps and a dollar a day and three square meals, more food than most have known before. And the uniforms are nice and neat and better than some of the clothes the farmers wear. They may only have to work an eight hour day, which sounds like heaven, but they do a lot of good things like build roads and plant trees.

You have to be eighteen to get in, but we've known of some younger, a boy one year older than me—fourteen. We met him at church last year. His father put him out. Said he had to make his way there were too many at home and no food. But another said that boy left camp. Homesick.

"See there," Dad told me. "Watch yourself."

Guess that kid and plenty like him don't have the job of 'carrying on.' I wonder what it would be like to be so free.

But Dad worries where it will go. It was bad before Roosevelt made these jobs. Dad worried we'd have a revolt worse than the time north fought south.

But now he worries that people will look to the government for their livelihoods. That would be terrible, he says. There would be nothing solid to it but the next government check and where does something like that end, he says with the pounding finger.

Mom says he is too English in his thinking. Dad says he is American in his thinking. He doesn't like being called English. He's Irish he reminds us, unless he's in a mood to love France. But he is not ready to serve one of the facists like over in Europe even if he comes with offers of milk and sweets. That's what he tells Mom.

Dependence on the government will kill a man's will to work, when he is given money he hasn't earned, Dad says. We could make a sampler on that one but then we don't need it, it's burned in our brains.

When Dad gets going and the Bible is put away for the night, and Dad has his glass of wine, Maman tells him to go to bed. Last she heard, she often says, he was not elected president.

I might like to try it, being the son of a president. But it's never going to happen unless you count the co-op or the board of deacons.

1111111111111

I am nearing Shaun's house. And I feel his pain in a way I can't explain. His and others before him. I try not to. It's Jasper Maman always says has this soft heart. He's the one that cries at the beginning of butchering every year though he would deny that.

I do not cry very much. When I'm angry sometimes, where no one sees mostly. But inside I feel more than anyone knows. And Shaun has a sinkhole of grief inside. He makes me know how black the world can be.

So I pull up and there's no lights. I hope that means he's out like a light. The door is partly open. I push in some with my shoulder. "Shaun?" I say.

There is a breeze, but it's eerie now and just shadows in the small room in the small house. It's a mess. Drawers pulled out, everything on the floor.

I see Shaun's boots in the doorway that leads to a small room where he slept with his wife…where she died. They died.

I hurry there and he is on his back and he looks dead. There is blood coming out of his head somewhere and I know how the head bleeds, it's endless sometimes. "Shaun," I say and I'm shaking him.

I pull on his arm and get him to sit and he groans. I see two empty bottles along the wall where they've rolled cause this floor has a pitch. "Shaun," I say.

He's moaning and not making sense. I look around and this is a crime. I lay him back down and hurry to the wagon for my shotgun. I look around and the leaves in the pin-oaks rustle in the wind. There are night sounds and a donkey brays off to the south.

I get back inside and lean my gun against the wall. It takes forever to get him into the back of the wagon. He barely helps and stumbles and collapses on me. I drop him twice. I have a rag from in the house under his head to catch the blood. The blow is on the side of his head, like he got waylaid.

I get my gun and I'm on the seat quick enough. I am armed and ready and Dad has always told me to save myself if it comes to it. He says you have to get that in your mind before you ever need it.

So that ride home is twice as long as the one that came before. I pull the wagon close to the house and I am calling for Dad soon as we near the house. They pour out then, my parents and my brothers and sisters and last even my Granma. They get Shaun inside so Mom can care for him and Dad goes for the sheriff while me and my brothers stand guard. Emmett at the road where he will fire a warning shot if he sees anything, Jasper at the house and me walking a circle around our place. This is how our father taught us.

All the tiredness has left me now.

I am ready to fight.


	23. Chapter 23

Deep in the Heart of Me 23

And still we milk. Birth or death, war or tornado, if there's a cow with a full udder we're on our knees trying to grab its teats.

Even Shaun. His head is stitched and bandaged and he works at the stanchion behind me.

The sheriff came out last night and went over the tenant house with Dad. What little wares Shaun had were ransacked and some things were taken, things of no value but sentiment since his wife was gone.

"God hates me," Shaun said this morning after Dad said Grace over breakfast. Then nothing else.

I hope he doesn't talk religion with Sobe. The two are in need of a miracle.

Last night, Sobe did not ride along with her father. She stayed with the neighbor, the widow Olmstead. She is not known for kindness, that widow, but Sobe is allowed to sit in her parlor when Sheriff gets called away. I know because I asked the sheriff. "Where is Sobe?" I said boldly for the events loosened me.

He eyed me. Like he was considering me or something.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"Just wondering…she…she might not like being alone."

"So I should bring her along when I'm called out?"

Well, I didn't know. I was just asking.

"You pretty good with that shotgun?" he said.

I'm a country boy. We're all good with our shotguns.

"Yes sir."

He nodded and started to pass me by but he stopped and said, "She stays with the widow next door. I don't bring her around trouble and she knows not to ask until it's over."

"Oh," I said.

I pictured her in her nightclothes, sleepy-eyed in the widow's parlor. And all because Shaun got clocked and robbed.

Whoever it was, the bandit is long gone, probably hitched a ride on the train by now, maybe crossed the river. He did if he's smart.

So this morning at breakfast Dad said we will go to church like always. It's me who asked and everyone stared like Satan himself was in my skin. I said, "Are we going to church?" Just like that. And they paused down to the littlest.

"Well what?" I said.

And Dad said we were going. "And you're welcomed too, Shaun."

And Shaun said, "God hates me."

And Maman clicked her tongue but she did not argue.

111111111111

First thing I see when Dad drives the truck into the lot beside the church is Sobe standing with a group of men, one being the sheriff. She sees me right off sitting along the bench in the back of the truck, Jasper and Emmett beside me, and the do-re-mi-and-what-have-youse facing us on the bench on the other side. They have been singing the whole long way.

Pee Wee is in the cab with the big people but he's been poking his face between Mom and Granma's nests of hair and knocking on the window, flattening his hands like deadly spiders that are trying to get me. It's his favorite game.

But now my heart is thudding at the very sight of Sobe in a white dress and a red rose pinned on her shoulder and the tails of a blue shawl draped over each arm and she plays with the fringe and she talks to others but her eyes are on me.

So I wait for the others to get out and by that time even Granma is out of the cab. I jump from the truck and pick Pee-Wee up with one arm and he holds to my hand with both of his spiders and straddles my back like a monkey and we walk over to Sobe and her father.

Three of my cousins talk to Sheriff about the robbery and all at once. Sheriff had talked to our neighbors last night and so it went farm to farm and where it didn't go it is going now—trouble at the Cullen's.

And Sobe goes up on her toes. She's peeking at Pee-Wee and he's playing along because he grows up with all the girls and he knows how to keep their attention.

She is lovely, but there are blue shadows under her eyes. It makes me swallow when I mean to say, 'Hello Sobe.'

"He's so cute," Sobe says about Pee-Wee.

He grips my shoulders and laughs against my back. He knows she's a pretty girl and he's goofy from it.

She reaches and takes Pee-Wee's hand. "You're a handsome fellow," she says to him, but she looks at me and maybe she means it for both of us.

"It's so terrible what happened to that young man. How is your family?" she says.

I look around me. They are everywhere, my family. "Fine," I say like what does she think?

Sheriff is done talking about the robbery for a minute and he looks at me and says, "Young man."

He does not shake my hand this morning and it is fine by me.

"Can you sit with us?" Sobe says. "Elsie is going to."

Well I am not part of the gaggle. And her father studies me like he does, but he does not echo the invitation, not that I need it. Well it would help. Not that I need that either. I just don't want to be like Elsie in her mind. But my cousins are eying me because she knows me and maybe they see she dotes on me, she does. She hasn't asked them to sit with her. At least, I haven't heard of it.

"I…," I say.

"It's all right," she says. "Of course you sit with your family."

"How is the widow? Olmstead?" I ask her cause Sheriff is shaking someone else's hand and so we can speak without his gawking.

"Did he tell you about that?" she says looking briefly at her dad.

"You didn't come with him…last night."

"Did you want me to Tonio?"

I look around. The others might have heard that. Patrick and Michael are looking at me. "Well I…."

"I did want her to come along last night. I was looking for her, sure.

"Dad didn't tell me what it was about. I would have come, Tonio."

"You shouldn't come around trouble. He's the sheriff, not you."

"But you looked for me?" she says with a giggle.

I look again. Yes they are listening. "Yes," I say. Then, "You don't like to be alone."

That makes the smile melt off her face.

"What?" I say.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"You like to be alone? What?"

Pee-Wee slaps on my cheeks and I grab his hands. "Sobe…."

Her father is speaking to my cousin Bill and some of those boyos have plenty of questions but I ignore them, I want to know about her. She's getting plenty attention from those older ones you won't find at school. But I'm the best among them. She doesn't realize.

"I'll sit with you," I say.

"You don't have to," she says and I still can't imagine what I've done to get this treatment. It was going so well….

"I am," I say, and Pee-Wee pulls his hand from mine and he hits my nose and it's still sore and I have to bite my lip, but I grab his hands harder this time.

I hear Bill saying, "It's that CCC camp, that's what I think."

"Ah hard to say," Sheriff answers.

I've never favored Bill or the big potato in his head where a brain should be. Matter of fact, I don't like any of them using the robbery to get close to Sobe. That's all it is, posing with their boots shined and their jackets held back to show their bony figures. My lot are a mix of limeys, krauts and frogs. What saves my line is Maman. I've always known it. She brings something to the micks and mutts that make my father's family. But we live around his litter and I don't think I'm better. I know I am.

I step in front of Bill, well put my shoulder there, in front of his, but with Pee Wee on my back there's only so much I can do. "Sheriff, mind if I sit with you and Sobe?"

Sheriff is speaking when I interrupt. I didn't mean to, but the urgency got on me to take Sobe's arm and settle it once and for all. I don't have her arm. Not yet. But I plan to in about ten seconds.

"Elsie," I call as she passes. "Take this." I mean Pee-Wee. A man can't court with a brother on his back.

I lower him to the ground and Elsie takes his hand. He's not happy but he's easy to lead.

I feel the eyes of my cousins on me, but I keep looking at the Sheriff.

"That's up to Sobe," Sheriff says.

Well they are all watching and she's mad about something, but she's looking at me. She turns and I get beside her and she crooks her arm so I can take it. I lick my lips but I'm prouder than anything.

"You don't want that Mick," my cousin Pat calls out and the others laugh but I don't spare them a look.


	24. Chapter 24

Deep in the Heart of Me 24

Sobe and her father take Neibour's pew. They will be thrown but the Sheriff doesn't know and that's where he led us so he gets in first, then Sobe, then me. So Neibours come down and I know Abelard wants that aisle seat cause it's his once he lets the family in ahead, but I stand to let him pass, I'm not moving. These old ones need to do something new for once. So his youngest Abel looks at me and I motion with my head he should move on by and he does squeeze past us, and then Anna and Abbie and Fredrich and Simon and Odelia and finally Mrs. Neibour and the baby and the glaring and bearded Abelard that don't pay fair for a day of labor in his fields, always a nickel short that skinny fisted. So I glare right back and he climbs over me, stomping my foot, and I hold in my curse cause he's my elder and we're in church but I'm keeping record on some of these even though Maman says we shouldn't.

Abelard sits beside Sheriff and they look to be cozy friends and I hide my smile so there.

Sobe looks at me, still that stern thing like I let her down but not stern as it was, more like she has questions, well I do too not that I'd know what to ask exactly.

"What?" I say again. But just about then Maman and Granma pass and she looks at me, my mother and it is another stern face like I've abandoned the family. Well I may need to be fifteen before I sit with the unmarried men, but she never said I couldn't sit with a girl and her lawman father.

So she turns away and in they all go, my gawking family, sausage in a gut case, threading tight in the pew, but not so tight for there is no me.

And no Elsie. She appears, this oldest sister, standing there like I should let her get by. What does she think that I'll let her sit between me and Sobe?

"What?" I say to Elsie.

"Move over," she hisses like I'm embarrassing her.

I turn to Sobe to ask her to move but she already is. And just like I thought she means to put Elsie between us.

So I move up next to her, to Sobe and we're crowded in now and I feel my sister squeeze in, but I pay her little mind for I'm so close to Sobe I'm partly in heaven and we haven't even started to sing.

And about that. The singing. For a while we give it a go and we all like that and even those who barely speak a word sing like they earn heaven by it. We raise that roof and then my sisters get up and they have no shyness to do this. They get up like it's a calling because that is what Granma says and she is a good woman and if she says it, well we pretty much know God signed the line.

Elsie gets up and joins them up front and there they stand. A couple of them favor me folks say but I don't see it. I fold my arms and Sobe nudges me like I'm related to the famous Cullen Girls or something. Believe me it's not that way.

They mostly keep their eyes on Maman and Granma. But Elsie keeps looking at me as they sing, their five little mouths opening wide. I always think, they get older they will never live this down, but folks around here are proud. And maybe I am too, just a drop.

Sobe nudges me and smiles and they are all looking at me now, at us. And why are they doing it when they're supposed to be singing to the Lord. I do not smile.

When it's over they squeeze back into the pew, Elsie with us again, while folks praise Jesus. Maybe they are glad it's over.

Then a long prayer that includes thanksgiving that no one was killed in the robbery on Cullen's farm. Then it begins, the preaching. Since thirty-three it always gets to drinking. Always. From there it goes to lust. It usually finishes with working hard and not swearing or gambling. My Dad calls it running all the bases. "We ran the bases today," he always says when we get home.

But now I keep stealing looks at Sobe. Not in an obvious way. I do it mostly by shifting a little and lifting my shoulder to my ear like I've got an itch, then I look very quickly. I happen to catch Corrine behind us, staring at me looking ready to cry. She surely is not mad at me too. Well I don't care if she is.

I look back to the front and wonder if Sobe is raising her fist about now. You wouldn't know to look at her-that such a pure beauty could be so mad.

When it's over Elsie leans forward and starts right in. "Can you come over and spend the day and eat dinner?" she says to Sobe like I'm a pile of coats in her way.

I can't believe it. Before I can even ask Sobe myself my own sister beats me to it. My own…. Now Sobe will think she is Elsie's guest and not mine.

Sobe ignores me and says to Elsie, "Well, I would like that."

"You should come," I say. Then I think that's not quite it. I should say more. "I can talk to your dad."

"He's right here, Tonio. I've been talking to him all of my life," Sobe says like I wouldn't know that.

"I mean…."

"What is it son?" her father says.

I am just opening my mouth when I hear, "Can Sobe come to our house today? She can eat with us and we'll have so much fun," my sister says.

She's beating my time worse than Pat and Michael, worse than Bill ever could.

"I want to," Sobe tells her dad. Then she looks at me like I said she couldn't come or something.

"I want you to," I say, then I feel like a fool cause her dad…they're all listening, even Abelard is bent forward listening, and his wife, and the little baby face.

Finally, finally Sobe gives me a tiny smile. But Elsie gets a much bigger one.

"Ride home with us," Elsie says to Sobe. "Can she ride home with us?" Elsie says to Sheriff.

"You should ride home with us," I say as if Elsie hasn't spoken.

Sobe laughs now. "I think I'll ride home with you." To her dad, "That okay with you?"

Sheriff shrugs and Elsie squeals and it seems to be settled.


	25. Chapter 25

Deep in the Heart of Me 25

They sing all the way home. Sobe is on the bench with them. She's got two years on Elsie and it shows believe me.

I sit across from her nearest the tailgate. I've elbowed Emmett twice because he won't stop staring at her. You'd think he'd never seen a girl so pretty like Sobe. Well he hasn't. But still some self-control is fair.

Even Pee-Wee is acting crazy. He's plastered in the window staring past his sisters, sucking on his blanket and looking at Sobe. It's embarrassing.

"You're staring," Elsie says to me.

"What?" I say pulled from staring at Sobe and how pretty she is in the sunlight with her hair blowing about her happy face.

"You're sweet on her," the gaggle says right there in front of God and all. In front of Sobe. Their sounds go up—"Um and oh," and if we weren't in the great wide world I'd be holding my bleeding ears. As it is I have to put up with them cause Dad is looking back with a big smile and he'd drive right into a ditch or the like were I to start tossing my sisters out one by one.

So this is how it will be here. They plan to torment me and it will not be seen as anything but them being cute. Everything they do is cute. I have never been cute in my life. Every mistake I ever thought of making is life and death and God help us all.

I sit back and fold my arms. I look over the tail gate at the road.

"He's going to jump," Emmett says, and I glare at him and the smile drops off his face. I may have to put up with it from them, but not him.

"He's turning red," Martha says and Mary repeats it.

Those two. God above.

I glance at Sobe and she is biting her lips and looking wary too.

"Be glad you're an only child," I say loudly to Sobe. I have to nearly yell to be heard over them.

"An only child?" they are repeating. It's far from the first time I've said that.

"Um. Mom said you can't say that anymore," Martha scolds.

Thank God we're to our road. Dad slows for the corner and I jump out and Jasper sees and he stands to jump but I wave at him and shout, "No," and he slowly sits.

"You're not supposed to jump out Tonio-io-io," Mary says and they pick it up, the io-io-io they love to say. Usually I yell at them to stop.

But today I put my hands in my pockets and take my time and the truck bumps along pulling Sobe away from me. She is watching and she waves a little, but not me. No not me.

111111111111111

I reach the yard I don't go past the house, I go around so they won't see and I enter the barn and it's always right in here. It doesn't change, it's its own world.

I go to the ladder and climb up there. Right off I see Shaun sleeping off his troubles in the mow. And a couple of swallows take flight and return to the nest when they see it's me.

I go to the wide double doors where we lift in the hay and I look across the yard then, at the house, and she's in there. Sobe Bell.

"They say the swallows take the souls to heaven," Shaun says.

He's maudlin. Mom says it's the grief. He's ornery with it.

I picture the swallows coming for his wife and child. The sky is so blue today, the clouds so white. The mother held the child and the swallows lifted her by the shoulders of her nightdress and she looked up, eager, her feet dangling cause she wouldn't walk the same. She'd fly now. She'd be an angel or a ghost.

If it were me…if it were my child, my wife….

I look back at him. "They're all talking," I say.

"Well," he sits up and rubs his face. Blood has soaked through his bandage. "I've given them plenty to chew on this year, eh?"

I look back at the house. Maman should go to hospital this time. I'm going to insist. I'll take her myself. I won't let it happen to her or one so wee.

Shaun gets up and walks slowly to where I stand looking out…at everything.

"It's a fine day in the heart of America," he says.

I look at him to make sure he's not mocking Dad. My father says that all the time.

"It is," I say.

He snorts.

Just then the door of my house opens and out they come. The gaggle. But it's not just them. Sobe is with them. They are holding the egg baskets.

"There they are," Shaun says. "Oh…we've got six now."

Yes, an extra. They are around her, all talking at once. Elsie holds her hand. The younger girls hurry ahead with the feed.

Shaun and I don't speak. We are watching.

"She's pretty," he says grinning at me.

She does not look like the others, like a child. She is a grown girl and he can see it same as me.

She is skipping all of a sudden, just a couple of steps, laughing, swinging her basket. I could watch her forever. She tips back her head and laughs at something Elsie says.

"You sweet on her?" he says, big grin. The blood and his pale face. He looks like the devil rolled him good.

"She's just a girl." I mean she's young, that's all. Too young for him.

"How old is she?"

"She's the sheriff's daughter," I say sternly.

"I didn't ask about her daddy, did I?"

We stare. He breaks into a laugh.

"Look at you. Boyo," he says quietly. He gets a smoke then. Not allowed up here, but he does it anyway and if Dad catches him….

He lights it and takes a deep pull. Sobe and the girls are all the way to the henhouse now. There is a commotion of squawks and laughter.

"Tonio…I know who did it. Last night."

"Who did it?" I ask him.

He keeps smoking, looking after the girls, not answering. "You gonna help me get them?" he says.

"Me? You don't even say who they are."

"You handled yourself like a champ at the school."

I take a quick look at Sobe. I did handle myself. My face and along my ribs, still…I handled myself.

"Who is it?" I ask.

"Smiths."

He's been gambling. Dad told him that wasn't his answer…Shaun's answer…for the grief. But he's angry mostly. He's mad.

Tillo's dad Otto runs a crooked game and only a fool and his two-bits gets involved in it, that's what Dad says. He says it to Shaun and Pat and Mike and Bill and anyone else he thinks needs to hear it.

But they've come on our farm, our land, our home where my sisters live, my mom and Granma. "You owe them? How much?"

"Fifty," he says.

"Fifty," I repeat like it's more than I'd imagined because I'd been ready to hear him say twenty, but fifty, holy smokes.

"It was more, twice that, but with what he took…." He doesn't finish but I feel his anger. "You gonna help me?"

"Do what, rob a bank?"

I don't need more trouble with the sheriff. The reason why is coming out of the chicken yard, the gaggle around her.

My dad has no wish to see me in that jail again. And I've no wish to be in it.

"But they came on Cullen land," he says.

"You have to tell Dad," I say.

"No," he says angry. "I'd die first. Tell him and listen to his holier than thou speeches all day long?"

"Just go then. Go back to Arkansas."

He's looking off and shaking his head. "I can't run."

I don't know why he can't. Either he was in trouble there or…maybe it's too sad for him without his wife.

"I want to hurt Otto Smith…but I have to be careful," he says.

"How bad?" I ask. "How bad you want to hurt him cause I can't chance it, getting pulled in." I am looking at Sobe again. No, I can't chance being a gangster in the eyes of her father. I remember him asking me that when he took me to jail.

"I don't want him to know it's me. I want him to wonder. There must be something I can do, something to hurt him," Shaun says pulling that smoke down.

"That girl down there is mine," I say firm.

He laughs. "She know that?"

"She will." It's not hard to hold his eyes at all.

"Okay," he says. He puts that smoke in his mouth and offers me his hand and we shake.

"You want to hurt him there's one thing he cares about most," I say.

Shaun thinks a minute then he grins. "His mule."

"We can load it at night, drive it to Glen Arms and sell it," I say. "You pay him with his own money."

For a minute he just stares at me. Then he breaks out laughing. "Boyo," he says clapping my shoulder, "you're genius."

"Otto loves that mule…more than his own sons," I say.

Sobe sees me now, standing in the doorway. The girls all call up, and Sobe waves.

"She sweet back?" Shaun says.

"Maybe."

"You kissed her yet?"

"Not yet," I say smiling as she walks toward the house.

But soon.


	26. Chapter 26

Thank you readers. And thanks to the girls at Robsessed for once again mentioning this story. They have been so very good to me over there. Happy Fall.

Deep in the Heart of Me 26

Dinner is a big affair. Dad made table one and as the babies kept coming he made table two. Now the two slabs of oak sit end to end and go on forever. Both sides are filled with people and food. Long benches are used in place of chairs, except at the narrow ends where Mom and Dad sit.

Pee Wee is perched on the big German Bible that Granma reads while Dad reads out of the English one. Sobe and Shaun are not our only guests. Sundays are that way. Dad always invites someone over. Uncle John usually and sometimes Patrick or Mike and more rare Bill. But they've heard we have Sobe over so naturally they are here. And they want to play baseball, or throw horseshoes or play Stinker's croquet which always makes the girls cry, and they pretend to be sorry for sending the wooden balls into the trees. Then they laugh their heads off.

Maman says they are wild boys. They are men. But my Aunt Christah does not come with them. She does not leave her house. She is kind as can be when you visit. But she does not even go to meeting. Maman says they have broken her spirit but Dad says she has always been stubborn and she's still Catholic at heart and Uncle John won't 'kiss the Pope's ass,' as he says and so Aunt Christah lives in protest.

So they come without her, like usual, and we have to put up with them. When I was younger I loved following them around and I thought everything they did was pretty fine. I was learning many things I should not have—like how to roll a smoke or say curse words. But now…soon as I get opportunity, I will get Sobe away from them all.

The way they carry on, Sobe is not used to so much noise. But she seems to weather it. She just gets prettier by the minute and they notice.

They have brought John's wine, but they're drinking Dad's as well. We make this every year around this time when the grapes are ready and we smash them and add sugar and strain out the pulp and skin and seeds and bottle the juice, capping each one off with a levered machine. Then we set the bottles in the cellar to cure.

Dad offers a glass to everyone who comes here-parents and a small glass for their children.

We are given some as well, on special occasions like today. My feelings are hurt if I am left out. I have never been drunk, and the wine makes me a little sleepy. But not today. I am not sleepy. I am watching Sobe and she is watching me.

"So Miss Sobe what do you think of this part of the country?" Pat says.

We're all silent for a minute. It's uncommonly sensible, that question.

"It's very flat," she says once she has finished chewing and swallowing. She looks all around the table. "And quiet. Until I met you all."

As if to remind her what a braying bunch this family is, everyone laughs and Pat slaps the table and the dishes dance.

I am across from her. We are looking at one another—Sobe and me. I smile a little and she does too.

"Did you boys hear about the tax man who came around snooping on Old Man Smith's farm?" Dad says.

I look at Shaun and he eyes me too. Dad always puts familiar names in his jokes but it's funny he'd mention the Smiths on this day.

"He asked what old Otto paid his hand and Smith said, "Twelve fifty a week and room and board.

"Next he asked what he paid the ferrier.

"Smith said, two fifty for shoes.

"Anyone else? the tax man asked.

"Smith said, there's the dimwit. He don't get paid so often, has rheumatiz in his back and legs and works an eighteen hour day, and the wife likes to give him holy heck.

"Oh, the tax man said. And where will I find this dimwit?

"And Smith said, you're looking at him."

Here it comes again, their big laughter. Sobe blinks a little they are that loud. I've always noticed it, but it's never bothered me as much as it does now. We're just disgusting.

"Is there more wine Mother?" Dad says down the table.

"I'll get it," I say as I stand.

Maman is not sure we need more, but Dad says two more bottles. So I look at Sobe and if there is any understanding between us she has to know what I'm thinking. She has to. So if she follows me, I'll know.

I take the empty bottles and put them on the backporch in the case for such, and I'm disappointed she hasn't followed. So I go out and go around to the cellar doors which Emmett left open when he got the full bottles in the first place. I go down there and get the bottles and when I come out the door to the bottom of the stairs she is standing at the top, the wind moving her hair and her dress.

I swallow some and take the steps up and her shadow covers me.

"I said I had to…I just said excuse me," she whispers like they will hear.

I smile at her. Whatever I think is there, I hope is there…it is.

"Wait here," I say, hurrying past her and into the house with the wine. They are talking about playing croquet. I sit the bottles by Dad and I quickly go back outside. Sobe is standing right where I left her. I walk quickly and grab her hand, and then we run.

She is giggling, barely keeping up. "Wait," she laughs.

But I don't wait very much. We get to the fence and I leap over and turn and help her over, and that gives me an excuse to hold her waist for a moment and I can't believe how she's made, scooping in here and swelling out there, not that she's more than a dollop, but what there is…she's beautiful. And I'm tired of sharing her looks and smiles and ears and words. I just want Sobe.

I take her to my grove, my pecan trees. "These are mine," I tell her, huffing a little, but walking now. I've taken her hand again.

She is quiet, looking at the trees. "How do you know they are yours?" she asks.

I think she's joking but she isn't. "Dad planted them for me. Before I was born even he ordered them. They've grown same as me. Almost fourteen years now."

She searches out the nuts and finds an easy handful. "I love these," she says.

"I'll give you all you want," I say proudly.

"I didn't mean…I wasn't hinting."

"I don't worry about that," I say. I wasn't accusing her of anything. I'll gather them and shell them too. I'll pick them clean for Sobe.

"You're so lucky," she says.

"Lucky?" I want to hold her hand again. "Maybe since you're here," I say. I don't know where I'm getting it, but I can tell she likes it. And I mean it.

"Come on," I say and I do take her hand.

"You're the luckiest boy, Tonio," she says. "You are. Your mother knows."

"Maman? I'm just the first. It…means something."

"Tonio this and Tonio that. You're loved."

We stop then. They watch my every move. They have something to say about everything I do and everything I should have done and didn't.

"I don't want to talk about them. Tell me about your life before you came here," I say.

"Tell me about all of these cousins," she says.

Why does she want to talk about them? "We just escaped them," I say. "They're all right, I guess. Do you want to go back there to see them or something?"

She smiles. "They're very bold. Do they have sweethearts or wives?"

I laugh. "No. Who'd marry their likes?"

"But Shaun was married," she says.

"Do you like me the best?" I ask.

"Yes Tonio," she says gravely.

"Well, I know they are older, but I'll be a better man than them when I'm older."

"I have no doubt," she says.

"I mean…I won't waste time and money on…foolish things," I say.

"They do that?"

"Some," I say.

"Oh."

"And I'll just have one girl. A wife," I say.

Her eyes are so serious and they grow bigger. "You'll be a farmer. That's what you are."

"Well yes," I say. But I have no idea. "What about you?"

She laughs nervously. "Someday I might want to live in the city again."

"The city?" I say too loudly. Why does she want to do that? Why does she want to go away? From me?

"Well yes. I like the city very much."

"Then why are you in the country?"

"Dad wanted to try being a small town sheriff."

I know she's here because her dad has to go where he can find work.

"What else has he tried?"

"Many things. All…important."

"You don't really say anything. I ask you a question and you don't answer," I say.

"I don't mean to. Dad's always been in the law." She looks away from me. "Oh, there's Tibby." She points to the paddock. Tibby is grazing, her long tail swishing.

I like the notion of riding with Sobe on Tibby again. "Come to the fence," I say. I go over the fence and walk slowly and Tibby sees me and lifts her head and comes to me and huffs while she sniffs over my shirt. I let her sniff me, even my hair which makes Sobe laugh. Then I take hold of her mane and jump on her back. She shakes her head and whinnies. I pet her neck and she gentles and I use my legs to encourage her to move toward the fence.

I get close to Sobe and it gets interesting. Sobe balances on the middle rung, the top against her legs. As soon as I'm close enough she lifts her arms and I bend to scoop her right up and instead of riding behind this time, she is in front sitting sideways. I have my arms around her holding to Tibby's mane, but I don't need to, not really.

Well she looks at me but our faces are so close she turns away and looks forward. "Tibby is so tall," she says.

We've already talked about that. I'm trying to get used to this and just be calm. I've ridden my sisters hundreds of times, and they all ride well enough. But Sobe is not one of my sisters, of course.

I think I could marry her right now.

We follow the fence for a ways and she asks me if I know any songs and I say I do and she asks if I sing like my sisters and I say, you mean like a girl? And she laughs so hard I think she's going to fall off Tibby. But she says no, silly.

Well she has settled into me now and I was holding my arms out but now I've relaxed them against her. There was a kid in Dewberry got married at thirteen, that's what I heard. Well I'm nearly fourteen. And I'm big for my age. Well I could shave right now, or anyday too, and three of the milk cows are mine.

"Well what's so great about the city?" I ask.

She sighs and I feel it, feel her lungs go empty and fill again. "It's very busy so you don't feel lonely hardly ever and there are shops and vendors and plays even. And libraries. And the food. I love to eat dinner in a restaurant."

Maman said a girl like Sobe would want things. Is this what she meant?

"You can buy donuts on a stick," she laughs. "And see a zebra in the zoo. You ever seen a zebra?" she says.

"Sure. St. Louis has a zoo and a bird cage left over from the World's Fair. Seen one zebra you've seen them all. Just a striped donkey," I say.

She laughs.

"You seen a giraffe?" I say because they had one at the circus that came through one time.

"Yes. Next year they are opening an exhibit for hippos…."

"Who is?" I say.

"I don't know. Something I read."

"In St. Louis they still have the trolley cars," I say. "I've been meaning to ride one sometime."

"I want to see St. Louis. Dad says he will take me."

"I could take you," I say boldly. I've no idea how I plan to do this, but that's just because I haven't figured it out.

She turns and looks at me. We are nearly nose to nose. The thing about Sobe, the closer you get to her the more you get caught in it…her beauty.

"You would take me Tonio? Could we eat in a restaurant too?"

"Well we could do whatever you want," I say.

She sighs a little and settles against me like I'm the back of a chair. If this is how it's done…big foolish promises I don't have figured out, then I am prepared to keep going forward.

She's mine then. I just need to know if she realizes…."Sobe," I say, "we are…you and me are…."

"Dearest friends," she says, and her hand lifts to cover one of mine tangled there in Tibby's mane.

"Like you and Elsie then?" I say too sharply.

She lifts from me and looks at me.

"You're a boy," she says not all that friendly.

"Oh, you see that?"

"I said you're the bravest."

She did say that. "Should I take you back to the house? Pat was being his charming self for you."

"Let me off, let me off," she says a flurry of legs and skirts and hair in my face.

She is off Tibby so quickly and I stare down at her. "Come here," I say.

"No. No. You're mean and I won't put up with it," she says turning from me and stalking through the grass.

I am off Tibby at once and catch her easily. "Sobe…."

"No." She's crying. I've made her cry. "We move, all the time. Sometimes at night." She's crying now, the one that takes a while, the one you can't talk a girl out of. I know with five sisters. I know.

"Why do you move? Are you moving?"

She looks at me, and I see those fresh tears roll and I want to punch my own face. "Tell me Sobe." My hand is on her arm, but I'm older now, I'm not fumbling.

She cries for a minute and I remember my handkerchief thanks to Maman and I dig that out and it's not foul so I give it to her and she says a small thank you that breaks my heart and she wipes at her darling face.

Then her eyes on me, so tragic and wet, and I try not to go to my knees and say, "Anything, Sobe Bell. Anything at all…."

"I don't leave friends behind me, Tonio. I don't have friends."

It's no thought at all when I smooth her hair away from her face and over her shoulder. I'm reading her features like Ezra read the hidden scriptures he discovered when they rebuilt the temple. I'm reading her with that care and concern.

"I'm your friend, Sobe. Just like you said."

"I feel safe with you Tonio. I haven't felt so safe…except with Dad."

"You are safe with me. I would do anything…." There, I have said it. "But why have you moved—your father's job?"

I've been in the same place all my life, and my family before, and before, right here. Three generations on Cullen land. I can't imagine moving. For us it would be like ripping away the umbilical cord to the earth. To who we are.

"Because of what he does, Tonio. But you can't tell. You can't tell your family or anyone. I'm…I'm breaking the code. Right now."

"What code? You think I would tell something that would get you in trouble?"

"Tonio-io-io," we hear on the wind.

I take Sobe's hand and we run once again, across the paddock and into the next field, and the next, into the trees and the woods, all the way to the creek.

When we get there it's a long time before we speak. I take off my shoes and roll my pants and wade in and the water is cold as the ice in the truck the man brings around. She sits on the bank, holding her dress around her legs and looking at me.

I go back and drop beside her. "Won't they think we're terrible for running?" she says.

"They'll get over it," I say, picking up a pebble and throwing it into the water.

"Your mother…she'll worry maybe?"

I laugh. "No." But if she thinks I'm rude for taking Sobe, I will hear about it.

"You have things to tell me, Sobe."

"I'm not allowed," she says. "Can we drink that water?"

"There's a well up that hill." I put on my socks and my shoes and unroll my trousers.

"A hill? Finally," she says.

So we go there and I take her to the well and I move the rocks off of the wooden cover and lower the can on the piece of rope and bring her up the water. She drinks. Then I do.

"It's good," she says.

It is good. Sweet and cool. This is where one of the original homesteads were before the fire. The well is all that survived.

"Are you moving then?" I say, but she doesn't know how much feeling there is in me, fear almost and I keep control.

"I never know. It's quick. It's always quick. One minute I take a breath and the next I'm packing my valise again, leaving everything behind."

We are seated next to the well. She sits with her legs crossed but I'm facing her. "Is someone after him?"

She stares at me. "He says that. But…."

"But what? Don' stop now."

"I think it's me, Tonio. I know it's me."

She looks at me, and the crying starts again, but this is the one that makes her fall toward me and I catch her and straighten my legs as I pull her into the V of me. I hold her then and she is like a rag doll, crying in her hair. It settles on me, the weight of her fear and my powerlessness. I want to go to Sheriff and get every blasted detail, but I can't betray her. I want to go to Dad and get his help. I want to get my shotgun and round up the boyos.

"Sobe," I say, taking the handkerchief from her hand and starting to wipe over her face. "Sobe. Sobe."


	27. Chapter 27

Deep in the Heart of Me 27

Sobe Bell has come from other places. I don't know how many or how often, but it will be my mission to discover these answers.

I have some things to figure out. One, how to steal a mule. That shouldn't be so perplexing. Trick is not to be seen. And to take it far enough away it won't come back on us.

I am no thief as a rule. But I am riding that high, high horse. Ever since I went back to school and met Sobe, ever since I found out about the baby. Thing is Otto Smith and his sons are a burr under the saddle of this county and I say tough on him. He comes on my land, he'll have me. My dad never let us live under threat and we're not starting now. That's what I want Sobe to know.

Two is the greater quest. How to keep Sobe safe, so safe she doesn't ever have to leave me. I can't protect her if she's not where I can see. So I have to win her father.

Three. I might be in love. I think I probably am but it's too difficult to think about. No one will believe it. They will say I'm too young to feel this, to know this. And maybe they are right about a thousand other boyos. But not me.

It doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Just Sobe.

One thing for sure. I have to know if there is threat to Sobe. I can't just ask all the questions I want because it upsets her. If her father knew I was told as much as she has told me, they would move at once, she says.

Who are they? Who is she running from?

When Sobe and me return home that first evening, the grasshoppers get out of our way. The family is at the tail end of croquet, and Elsie is withstanding Pat. The others have left, but Pat is the one most aware of Sobe. He sees us coming right before he strikes Elsie's ball. She screams and charges after him with her mallet and my sisters come running off the porch where they sit around Maman and Dad, they come with mallets, all of them and he takes off laughing.

"Oh my," Sobe says.

Above it all, my father laughs. It makes me smile to hear it, it does.

Sobe has been quiet on this walk home. It is good to hear her come around. I haven't known how to pull her back, but I've stayed with her like I have with an animal needing to walk off sickness. For all our crazy games in the yard, we are patient here. We have learned to coax life, out of the ground, out of everything God has given us. That's what it means to farm, Dad says. Patience. He says it comes from God. He's put it in each of us. But we have to let him coax it. And that means knowing how to be still.

So I am walking Sobe slowly and she is coming away from her worries, coming back to us.

"There they are," Colleen says and they leave off chasing Pat then, all but Elsie. My sister is strong. She's had to be. She can take care of Pat and his brothers. She uses the mallet to try and whack his foot and he's dancing before her even as he laughs and screams like a girl. I have to smile too. It's the best when he gets Elsie mad.

It is time to milk. Emmett and Jasper are bringing them in. I feel it after all this time, milking. I feel it to the minute, we all do. That's why Mike and Uncle John are gone and Shaun is in the barn. Pee-Wee is looking over the bannister on the porch steps. "Tonio-io-io," he calls mimicking the girls. They've ruined him.

Elsie leaves off chasing Pat and comes to Sobe and the girls surround her like a swarm. They are scolding me for keeping her, but she doesn't seem to mind. She looks at me, looks over her shoulder as they take her away. I feel our parting. But it's all right. I'm anxious to do chores and wait for her father.

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The girls have brought Sobe in to see us milk. She's been given a tour of the main section of the barn. Emmett is driving the cows out and Jasper is bringing them in.

I look up at her, move a teat and squirt at her and a few drops land on the hem of her dress.

Elsie rebukes me but Sobe is all smiles and it's good to hear her giggle. I might of made her sad, but they have made her happy again.

"Can I try?" she says and I tell Elsie to get her a stool. I move enough to set it there and she gets on it, tucking her dress. We are close now and I'm holding the teats and showing her. This cow is not the most gentle, but gentle enough with me so near.

My sisters are helping me with instructions and I say, "One of us at a time." I mean me and they seem to know it.

Shaun starts to sing and they all get going then and I have a few seconds with Sobe again and I tell her to pinch off and squeeze and she tries and most don't get it first time, but once they do they see how simple. And when it squirts she's not sure how she did it, but she's very happy.

She's determined to learn and leans in closer. "Sobe," I say, and she looks at me and I kiss her then, her mouth is open and I just get the corner, but I pull back and she is letting her eyes open, and she's staring. "Tonio," she whispers.

And they are back then, the gaggle, singing and everything, Colleen takes Sobe's hand, which is now in her lap like a new piglet or something, too weak to move. And they lead her off the stool and I watch her stumble away and I am smiling until I see Emmett with my next cow and I've barely started on this one.

I set a record then I finish so quickly. I've been saying it over and over. I kissed her.

I remember how Sheriff asked me if I knew how to use my rifle.

I can shoot an eye out of a gopher from the hip, on the run, while I eat an apple.

Would that be enough to make him happy? It makes me happy.

Everything does now. Everything.


	28. Chapter 28

Deep in the Heart of Me 28

An hour later I am pulling the milk cart, taking the cans to our stand on the main road. I look over the fields. I've grown by ten years today. Dad said he did that in the war—and that has always made me scratch my head, but I've done that now. One day. Ten years.

Our bins are full and most of our crops—wheat, corn, oats, milo-went to the mill.

At the mill they weigh the full wagon and we drive it up the ramp to the second story and unload our crops into the bin. From that bin they will fill the railroad cars and take our bounty to market.

I love the sounds there, the creak of the ramp as we go up, the horses' hooves clomping on the wood and the spillage of the grain into the bin—that sound is the best of all.

They weigh the empty wagon again. Each crop pays so much a pound. Each load is tallied and once harvest is in they do some final figuring and we get paid.

It's a time of satisfaction. We feel the reward of our work. We get new boots, new overalls if the crops make good and Dad plans what to repair, what to replace before next year's planting.

Well I'm thinking all this, what's good about farming. I'm thinking of Sobe liking the city and I'm asking myself why I love it here. I'm asking that and I've got some answers although they aren't much. I like it cause it's what I know. And now I know this: I have kissed Sobe and her lips are soft. And she's sweet. And inside she's brave. And afraid. And someone is after her father. And more likely—her. See? Ten years.

I set the full cans on the stand at the end of our lane and lo and behold here comes that Ford Sheriff drives.

Same time the milk truck is coming from the other way, early again.

I don't have it figured yet. It's best he comes to me. I have to go to him he's got the upper hand but if he's the one asking, then I got some advantage.

So I wave to the sheriff and he stops and watches me help Winston and his son Duane load the milk cans and he gets out and says, "Evening." He wonders if they saw anything, heard anything on their route. He's looking into the robbery at Shaun's.

They have seen nothing. Sheriff doesn't know-it will be handled without the law.

He says he'll ride me to the farm. He says, "Get in."

I tuck the cart behind the stand and I get in the Ford.

"I want to talk to you for a minute," he says.

I think God is surely on my side here. Finally.

"Well that business at the school is taken care of. You boys did a good job up there. You go in ready tomorrow to behave. Sobe told me all about it and…," he looks off and I think he must be looking through every which word wanting to get it right and he's looking for it, the way to go, and he can't find it yet.

I rub my hands along the legs of my pants.

He peers at me. All my life Dad's been telling me to try and look bright, but I'm not trying now. I go on and rub my nose.

We pull to the house and the girls are inside setting supper and Sobe is probably with them.

"Mom will want you to stay to supper," I say.

"Supper?" he says like maybe he is hungry.

"Yes sir. It's just what's leftover from dinner. Chicken with biscuits over, green beans and ham, noodles and gravy-applesauce or pie. Pumpkin too." I scratch on my ear like I have a flea.

"You're persuasive," Sheriff laughs a little.

We get out. I have not seen Sobe since that kiss. That kiss. I try not to think it now. Not around Sheriff.

So we go in and the girls are here and Maman fusses and flurries around the sheriff. If he does not trust, he will trust her. She makes him sit in her chair and gets him coffee. She is not mad he put her sons in the jail, but she will try to win him so it never happens again. She believes in love.

I believe in love. I'm just not sure how much it can accomplish without help.

Sobe comes to her father and hugs him. He pats her back. He is looking at her. Maybe he is looking for 'lonely,' but he will not find it here.

"Wash Antonio," Maman reminds me like I'm Pee-Wee. And that one is hanging on my leg and I take him to the lean-to with me. I set him next to the sink and rebutton the strap that hangs down his back to the bib on his overalls. He is looking at me so sincerely. I ruffle his red hair. Dad says that's the Irish getting out.

He pumps my water. Pumping the water is his job and he takes it serious.

The spray hits the pan and I lather soap and wash my face and look in the mirror over the sink and my hair goes every which way like always. I take the brush there and brush it off my face. It doesn't want to stay so I use some water.

"I sleep with Tonio," Pee-Wee informs me. That's happening too often.

"Elsie," I say. I've no wish to wake up peed on.

"No," he says. "Tonio." He's angry and he works the pump and water splashes into the pan and wets my shirt.

"Pee-Wee," I say pulling him off the sink and making him stand.

"I sleep with Tonio," he says.

"Your mother says to stop preening. She needs kindling," Sobe says from the doorway. Her arms are out for Pee-Wee and she scoops him up and sets him on her hip. He's already holding onto her braid.

I smile at her, and she at me.

I am not preening. But I can see in the mirror and it's not so bad, what she sees. She is looking like I'm okay.

She is okay. I can see my sisters worked over her hair. They do that for one another and their friends. Constantly. But she is beautiful and can't be anything less.

Maman is laughing over something the sheriff has said and Dad and the rest come in and I go to the sink and dump the pan.

Pee-Wee gets down from Sobe's arms and gets on his stool and climbs on the flat part next to the pump. He's ready to get their water.

"I'll show you the woodpile," I say.

"Oh…I've seen it," she says looking quickly back at her father who is standing to shake hands with my father.

"Come see it again," I say and I don't wait, I go out then.

I grab the basket off the steps and back I go to the woodshed. She closes the door behind me. I am smiling but she can't see. We get back there and go around and I am filling the basket not looking at her too much. Not talking.

"You should ask him to let you stay," I say.

"Stay?"

"Here," I say, taking a log to make small wood while I'm at it.

I take the ax off the wall and go to the block with the log. I stand it on end and knock off some shives.

She is watching. "You mean…what do you mean?"

"Stay with us. He can come to see you. You don't have to be alone."

"Tonio…I…."

"You don't want to stay?"

"And ask your parents to take on…."

"We've room," I say.

"But they can't just…adopt me. I have a father."

"We won't work you too hard," I say. She doesn't know it's okay to smile. I'm joking about the work. I think.

We gather the small wood off the ground. We take this to the outside woodbox and fill it. This is my sisters' job but they've been distracted, and I don't mind doing it for a chance to have a few words with Sobe.

At the side of the house I'm tempted to try and kiss her again. We fill the box and I try to go in for another and she pulls back. "Tonio. Do you just want me here to steal kisses?" she says.

I feel like a fool with my lips puckered, meeting air. I must look like a chicken. But I straighten and stare at her refusing to be ashamed. "You don't like it?"

Now she grows red. "Tonio," she says softly, but it's rebuke. Like she's talking to Pee Wee.

"Just forget it," I say.

I am walking off while I swing the basket. There might be plenty of girls wouldn't find my kisses so terrible. Corrine for one.

"Tonio," she says catching me. "It's not fair that you're angry. I've never…I just…I don't know what I should do. I can't ask my father. And I really can't ask your mother! Or Elsie, or any of them."

"Ask me," I say.

"You?"

"That's right. Ask me," I say.

"Well that's…I mean…should I be letting you…kiss me? I mean…."

"Do you like it?" I say.

We both know we can't do all we like. She is studying me and I know that's what she's thinking.

"I don't know. It…it wasn't exactly…you got the corner." She points to the corner of her mouth.

She doesn't know if she liked it? That's not what I'd hoped to hear. And I'm well aware I only got the corner. She hadn't turned her head enough and there was a cow for god sakes.

"Just forget it," I say again.

"No!" she says so loudly I imagine if her father heard it I'll soon be shot. She swallows and I think she hasn't meant to cut me down. She's just nervous.

"Let's try once more," she says. "Then I'll know. If…it's…you know."

I'm somewhat offended still that she doesn't know already. It may have been just part of a kiss, but the intention wasn't faulty, and she should know that.

Her father is right there in the kitchen. Maman pulls the wood box inside the house and it moves from being pitched toward us to slamming shut so Mom can fill the stove. We both have jumped I guess we're so guilty but unable to see through the wall they cannot guess we are standing there.

I am not letting any of this stop me. I drop the basket and I step to Sobe and put my hands on her arms and I draw her closer and she lifts her face to me and I can feel her heart hammering through my hands and no, that's my heart, I think, and I am close to her, so close I can see her tear ducts in that light from sunset and the tiny spaces between her eye lashes and the dark center in her brown eyes and the unbroken rays around her pupils and the tawny golden brown there, and questions and willingness, willingness, and I've been an ass, a proud crabby ass, and her skin so sweet and maybe a little damp, and her perfect nose, with nostrils flaring just a bit, just once, and her lips then, parted and red and I know how soft. I have lowered until my forehead rests on hers, and I close my eyes and we just breathe, her and me, and I don't know time, I just…I am overcome.

"Sobe," I whisper. "Stay with us. With…me."

I hear her swallow first. Her hand touches my cheek, her hand softer than any I've known and I groan to be touched by her.


	29. Chapter 29

Deep in the Heart of Me 29

Dad attaches the battery to the radio and we gather round to hear Death Valley Days. We listen to that trumpet sound and the voice of Old Ranger says, "Howdy folks."

Now that bugle usually gets me excited and by Ranger's greeting I'm daring anyone to make a peep. So I love the Death Valley stories. But tonight, I almost don't care at all. I'm across the room from Sobe eating my popcorn, bites of my own, then the dampish ones Pee-Wee tries to feed me in hopes I'll let him sleep with me.

"That's enough," I tell him, but in another minute here comes his hand and I push it down and say, "Feed Elsie."

I have not been as soft with Jasper, well him too near my age. Nor with Emmett. I was too busy growing myself. But Pee-Wee, there is space between us and I feel protective of him. And so does Elsie. It is the thing we're all closest on next to the land and love of our parents—Pee-Wee. If there was ever a fire he's making it out because we're all going for him first.

Elsie might let me burn. And while I'd do the right thing, she wouldn't be my first choice. She doesn't need me anyway, she's the strongest girl, well nearly the strongest I know.

I am looking at the other named Sobe Bell and she has a soft spot for Pee Wee. She is beckoning him to come sit on her lap. He does that and he's doing the big smile and we all laugh when we see it because his whole face is his very wide, wet mouth turned upward. He's in love with Sobe.

I look around, and they all are in love with Sobe, I think. There's no way we won't scare her off. What a desperate bunch.

Now Sheriff, he is not beyond noticing how Sobe seems to enjoy rocking Pee Wee. I must be daft not to get this. The best thing I have going for me getting Sobe under our roof is my little brother. He's about as innocent as it gets. It won't be me settles this deal. It will be Pee Wee.

Mom is darning, and her eyes shoot Sobe's way and then to me. Sobe does not see how Maman studies her but I see it of course and I look at my mother like, "What?"

Ever since we came in late for our pie because we were getting the kindling she's been giving me this look. And she's the one sent me out!

And Elsie, she is making a pouting face at Pee Wee trying to get him to come sit on her lap. Good Lord I hope she's not jealous because her devotion to Sobe is also important in the scheme of things.

Colleen and Martha, are especially easy to turn, two for one. And the other two, Mary and Sarah, they need to stay out of the way because there is a little Elsie hiding in each only they aren't as brilliant but they are as opinionated about too many things.

I never understood why we had to have so many of them, of girls. But I wouldn't have welcomed more boys either except in harvest. But Pee Wee. He's not so bad.

"You've had enough water," Elsie is telling Pee Wee from across the room. It's near bedtime and Sobe, having never slept in a warm puddle, has been giving him all he wants.

Sheriff is having a fine time. He listens to the program and every now and again he leans toward the set to better hear. Having only one kid, he doesn't know what it's like to try and listen to something with all these chattering girls about.

Shaun is not in here. Jasper took him his dinner in the bunkhouse. He does not stay with us more than he has to. And Dad has eased Sheriff's mind, I think. Dad has given him consolation that we've had no trouble on our land before now.

Before the Smiths no one dared to mess with us.

My dad, he can fight if he has to. Not only was he in the Great War, but Uncle John says he boxed in the old days and he was feared. My dad is thick in the chest and arms. The picture of him and Mom on their wedding day, she wears a hat and stockings and she is beautiful and he just looks funny in his suit. He said that suit was for monkeys and he was choking the whole time, and Mom says he was fine and handsome as Spencer Tracy. I don't have an opinion on that. On Spencer Tracy.

Anyway, it's no time to think on dumb stuff. I have so many problems to solve. I can't be the one to ask Sheriff if Sobe can stay with us, and Sobe won't ask without an invitation. Or maybe she doesn't want to.

Elise has to suggest it, make Mom see how it could be done, then I could help on that because Maman will ask me, I know. But I can't look like I'm up to something because that will go against me. And I'm not up to something anyway, just doing what Dad always says, being my…neighbor's keeper. Well maybe I am up to a couple of things. But I've got reasons. I think if Mom hadn't seen the handkerchief, I think then she wouldn't be so suspicious of me.

"What on earth has got you?" Maman asks like my brain is making noise with all these thoughts.

I point to the radio. We're not supposed to talk. I pretend the burro's story Old Ranger is telling has me captured.

"Tickle, tickle," Pee Wee is saying to Sobe as he tries to tickle her ribs with his greasy hands. We're the most embarrassing bunch of mudgrubbers.

Elsie picks her book off the floor so she can do homework. I have not even asked what I must do to catch up.

The new teacher comes Monday. I'm not going to expect someone grand. Probably another pickle puss and that's really fine for me. School can't help but be interesting with Sobe there. It's all I require or I'd be out.

And I look at Dad. I know he said to throw school off. But it's something to do over the winter. Come spring he'll be mad at us with planting. Long as we keep up with our work he shouldn't be too unhappy with scholars for sons. And I'll make sure none of us lag.

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The next morning I am up early getting everything done, ordering Emmett and Jasper about as they are sluggish.

I have…enthusiasm. I don't need much sleep even. Shaun is getting jiggered at me. "When should we take Otto's…you know what."

"Friday night when Otto's game is high," I say.

"Well listen to you," he says with possible admiration.

"Have Pat get Uncle John's truck. You and him will wait by the creek and I'll go in for the mule and ride the thing out. We'll load him and Pat drives all night and takes him to Springfield bright and early for Saturday's sale," I say. "But not you. You're here."

I finish the last udder, and that's what I call them sometimes, not cows but udders. I slap that cow's rump and take my full pail to the last can. "Pat's got that colt. Good time to bring him along. If the coppers ask about a mule brought in to the sale it will help if it's a mule and a colt," I say knowing full well it won't go that far but feeling like a gangster sort of, and liking it. "But we need the bill of sale so we know who took him and how far he goes. The Smiths never leave the county. They won't start now. Less there's another Great War or they're hauled off to jail."

"We'll split it three ways," Shaun says meaning the proceeds from sale.

"No. It's you . Pat sells the colt. You pay Otto what comes from the mule."

Shaun laughs. "It's brilliant." He looks around for my dad so he can light a smoke, "Your maman know what a devil she's raised?"

I hope not. I'd like to keep my new gangster life as far from Maman as possible.

So I'm soon in the line for school. The gaggle behind me, the herd up front. I've not a book with me and I don't help my sisters with theirs. I'll only get in a couple of weeks before we'll butcher. Even though it's cool today, you can feel a light freeze coming.

I hear a motor coming from behind and I turn to look. It is something I've not seen before.

"Get out of the road," I call to the gaggle. They line the side to stand and gawk. Like me.

The sound is a motorcycle with a small seat in a giant bean attached to its side for a passenger.

The cycle draws closer and it's most curious is all. The rider wears a helmet and goggles, like a pilot might. And it waves quickly to the gaggle and they wave back. Then it waves to me and continues past.

Then it waves to the herd and they do not wave, they call to me, "Whoa, it's a woman!"

It's a woman. Now who could this be. A motorcycle like I've never seen. And a woman steering it? I don't like it at all.

11111

The motorcycle is parked at the school and you can't see it for the boys around it.

I go inside. There's milling about in here too, like a holiday. There is a tall woman at the desk, tall and very skinny. Girls are gathered there, chattering on and on. Corrine smiles at me.

But I am looking for Sobe.

I see her easy as finding a penny in bowl of oats.

I make my way in and I take the seat behind Sobe after I chase another from it who gives me no trouble at all but gets out of my way. I pull on Sobe's hair a little in case she thinks she will ignore me.

She turns and smiles at me and hands me a small envelope. My name is written on the front. "Antonio," it says.

I look at the new teacher and class is not yet called to order and I put my finger under the flap that is sealed with a disk of wax and I break that and pull the thick white paper from inside.

I am invited to a Halloween party given by Sobe and…Sheriff on the upcoming Friday evening.

I sit back in my desk very slowly and I look at Sobe and she is handing one of the envelopes to Elsie and I turn and Tillo, back of the room has an invitation and he's holding his up to Utz who also has one and I look around and no one is without one of the thick white cards in their hands or on top of their desks.

No one.

She turns and smiles at me. "Isn't it wonderful Tonio? It's my dad's idea."

It's not exactly wonderful. Not at all. She's saying something about games. And food. It's nothing special to get this. Tillo and Utz? She can't be serious. I'm nothing to her. I'm one more. Only one more. And she let me kiss her.

"I don't know if I can come," I say. Coldly. I do have that mule to steal.

"But…why?"

She's very pretty, I'll give her that, and it makes it worse if possible.

"If you want to kiss Tillo, I won't stand in your way," I say.

"That's enough class," new teacher is saying rapping her ruler on her desk. She is Miss Patricia Rivers. She is writing it on the board.

"Turn around," I tell Sobe.

Her face falls. I have heard that before—his face fell. Her face fell. It's stupid to think that, but it is exactly what happens.

I stare at the back of her shiny, glossy head, her thick hair over her shoulders, her delicate…betraying shoulders. I think of us…hours before, side of the house. It got settled then. For me it did anyway. And now…I look at that paper and imagine her dunking for apples with Tillo and me running forward in a rage and holding his head under and her father having to shoot me because the German is going limp….

"Put your invitations away and get out your histories. If you don't have a book move your desk next to someone and share. Now who has a book?" Teacher says.

I don't have a book. I don't want a book.

"You will share with Sobe," Teacher says walking our aisle handing out one of the extra books to me.

"Teacher I will share with Sobe," Tillo says and others laugh and I close my eyes and my hands make fists.

The book lies on my desk and I do not move and Sobe is struggling to bring her desk alongside me and I do not help. She gets it there and she plops into it a little out of breath. They are opening their books and Sobe opens the book before me. "Antonio," she whispers. "What is it?"

I look at her. "Only my mother calls me that," I say very sternly.

She pulls back a little.

"Read Mr., Cullen is it? Mr. Cullen? Oh, I have a Miss Cullen as well. Let's hear from the Mister then. Mr. Cullen?" Teacher says looking up from her ledger for me.

Sobe opens the book and smooths the page before me and points to the place but I hear her sniff and I look at her and she might be trying not to cry.

And I look back at the page and I begin to read in my very flat voice.


	30. Chapter 30

Deep in the Heart of Me 30

The rain has finally stopped. The schoolyard is mud. This has been one strange day.

I've already told Elsie to tell Jasper to watch the girls.

"We don't need watching," she'd informed me. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be home for milking," I'd said ignoring the question when she already knew.

My lunch bag is full. I had no heart to eat anything from it. During lunch Miss Patricia Rivers gave the late students a list of all the work they would need to catch up.

She's a pistol that Miss Rivers. Her father was a military man, she said. She once went to Africa and hunted elephants. When Utz asked what kind of rifle she'd used she said, "An elephant gun, of course." She'd winked at me when she said it. I didn't know if she was lying.

She takes liberty to touch my hair while I'm working. Twice she scratched my head, and others' heads. She looks over our shoulders to see what we are writing and reads it aloud while she scratches over our brains and right there asks all kinds of questions.

So many questions. She asks us late ones the most. She fires questions at us. "What is the capital of Spain Miss Sobe Sheriff?"

"Madrid," Sobe says.

Are we aware of the unrest in Spain?

"My Dad says Spain is a dangerous place," Sobe says "He says it lights a fuse under the whole of Europe."

"Oh," Miss Pat says with such interest it makes me wonder if Sobe should have stayed quiet.

"And does your father tell you of the dangers?" she says suddenly to me.

"He says Spain is ready to split. And the Fascists will have a field day if they don't fight each other first." That is my reply.

She looks very happy over this, not happy, but interested. I think I see delight.

"Who are the dangerous despots?" she says to me.

"The upstart Hitler. Stalin."

"Hitler," Tillo sneers.

"And Mussolini," Sobe says.

"My Granma spits into her handkerchief when Dad reads Mussolini's name from the St. Louis paper," I say.

"And what do you think of all this?" Miss Patricia asks me, a small smile on her lips. Her face is long and thin and she is not pretty, and I don't know yet if I even like her, she is so strange. But she is interesting.

I look briefly at the Smiths who listen with their mouths hanging open cause Otto has not taken the time to teach them anything at all. "I am glad to live in The United States of America," I say. "Others have fought and many have died to achieve our freedoms."

"Tonio," Tillo sneers under his breath, just like he sneered Hitler.

Miss Patricia holds her hand, palm out toward Tillo, but she does not look. She says to me, "Go on Mr. Cullen. What does your father tell you about freedom?"

I don't want to sound stupid. But if I want I can remember things, almost like they are happening all over again. It's the same when I read. It just stays.

"Freedom is won by terrible sacrifice," I say.

"Always?" she says.

"Yes. Always." It's good to remind myself.

She takes in a big breath. "So if our freedom is ever threatened, President Cullen, how must we uphold what others have died to achieve?"

"We will fight just like my father and others did in the Great War," I say.

I look toward Utz and Tillo. If it came to it, we'd be on the same side for once. But only then.

"The United States is a city set on a hill," Elsie says from across the room.

"Your father…?"

"My mother says this. This country is a light that gives hope to the world. So we have to stand no matter what comes against us. Or the world will go down in darkness."

Teacher claps her hands. "My, my, my," she says with glee and the whole class is listening.

"Do you believe like your mother the patriot and your father- the hero?" She looks from Elsie, to me.

It's strange that she names our parents. Maman-a patriot? I picture George Washington, not my mom. But Miss Pat calls our father a hero. He would never call himself such. Would I?

"I agree with my father. On politics," I say.

"Oh," she laughs, "is there something you disagree with?"

I think of the whole topic of school. I think of the whole notion of farming. Much as I love the land, I'm not sure farming is the only way for a man to live and breathe. I think of how hard he drives us. He says he does it because he loves us and wants us to be good, God-fearing men. It's family. It's country.

And the new baby. And Maman.

Shaun. His…loss.

Otto's mule. They came on our land and I'll go on theirs. I will.

And Sobe. I have already decided. I will save her.

"I'm not sure about all of it," I say. But I'm pretty sure. Dad would not always agree with me.

"Ah," Teacher says nodding. Her brows are up and she looks too hard and long and they are all looking now and Tillo laughs behind his hand, and Utz smirks.

But not for long.

11111111

So it's finally after school and the rain and the mud and Teacher has given us all kinds of work. I am leaving there conflicted about what this day has been like. Hard, but not my worst day.

I haven't had that yet. That's what I believe.

"Mr. Cullen," Teacher says from the doorway when we are nearly down the stairs.

I turn and look past Sobe who now stands against the banister to get out of the way.

"Yes Teacher?" I say. Most of the girls around here have their hair chopped off. Not my sisters and not Sobe. But Teacher has really short hair. Like a man's. I don't know what Maman will think of it.

And she wears a skirt but it's split I think. Split so there are legs trying to look like they are not legs. I don't think lady teachers can teach students while wearing britches but this one is something we've not seen around here before.

"When did you know your head was stuffed with more than pins and needles Mr. Cullen?"

I stare at her, no idea what she is talking about.

"Your father is on the schoolboard," she says.

Since it's not a question I stay quiet.

"I hope to meet him at this party of Sheriff Bell's," she says. "And your mother."

I nod and take my leave.

Sobe is coming along behind me. Others rush to speak to her about the party. Seems the whole school is invited. Or nearly so. Our whole class.

I walk to the pump house and I put my books in there. Then I silently return to where Sobe is talking to other gaggles about the party, about costumes.

I tap Sobe's shoulder and I take the books from her arms. The girls simper some and get the way girls get which makes me get it's so embarrassing.

But I am a hero's son. And Maman has taught me manners.

In a few minutes I am walking with Sobe. Very slowly.

"She likes you, Tonio," Sobe says. "She knows how smart you are."

I am proud Sobe thinks I am smart. I have not doubted that I am, but I've left that to Elsie. It's enough to carry Dad's dream of Cullen land sprouting Cullen seed until kingdom come. I've no inclination to carry Maman's dream for a scholar along with it.

We talk about our strange new teacher and we feel better then. I do—like I find my way back from the way things started this morning.

"Dad has been planning it," she says as we walk along. She's turned to talking about the party. "Well it was the widow's idea," she says as if I want to know the ins and outs. "She did the invitations."

That old prune, I think to myself, but I don't say it. But some of my former mood is returning.

"You hurt my feelings today," she is suddenly blurting. I don't know what else she's been saying. My mind has been drifting to other things. To thee thing.

"Tonio," she says, "aren't you my friend?"

"Me?" I say like there's someone else with us.

"You hurt…."

"I…Sobe." We stop there in the road. "I'm…can you forgive me?"

"Yes, of course, but I thought you were my friend…and…."

"I'm your friend, Sobe. That's the problem."

She is staring at me. I shift her books a little. Now I want to get this right, and I'm warning myself.

"All night I'm trying to think it out…will 'they' come for you?" I look around and lower my voice. "I guess I would get to school and you wouldn't be here. And I'd run to your house and you'd be gone."

That she doesn't fight this, tell me I'm crazy, makes me feel sick.

She is looking at me, and there is so much in her eyes, feelings like fear and…she makes me know it will happen. Just the way I've stated it.

"I wouldn't know where you went or if you were all right," I say. "Cause I don't know who they are or if they've caught you or…how can I fight them…or watch for them?"

I can't say anymore. It's too strong in me. I'm going to hurt her feelings again.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"I can't ask for help," I say, and I want to stop, be better, sound better. But I've never felt like this, worried and angry and…at wit's end.

"I shouldn't have told you," she says.

Dad says to work a problem you cut it into the smallest pieces and lay it out and think what you can do to change one small part of it. And you fix one thing, then you fix another, then another. And after you've fixed all you can, you and your wife and your children, your dog and your cat, from sun-up to sun-down—after all that effort, you ask for help.

Maman says you pray.

I can't ask Sheriff for more information and I can't ask Dad to show me how to break it apart like it's an engine on the tractor. Sobe was breaking the code to tell me. I'm thinking of ways to get her home where I can watch her. And next I know…she's having a party but I can't think what we're celebrating when 'they' are out there.

I walk away then. Now that I've let some of it out, I feel like running and running and chopping down a tree or climbing one or something. But there's the milking. That's the push.

She catches up to me again. "I shouldn't have told you. It's not yours to fix, Tonio."

"You should have told me," I say. "I'm your friend so you should have told me."

"You're upset and…it wasn't fair…it's hurting you."

"Take this," I say. I hold out my lunch. "You can have it." There is apple cake inside. From yesterday. Granma makes it and Sobe loved it, and this morning Granma said she put a piece in for Sobe. And I looked at her, and I thought maybe she understood.

Sobe takes the bag and holds it with hers. She can't eat anymore than I can.

"We're trying to be normal, Tonio—Dad and me. That's all," she says so sadly. "Dad thought it was a better start than…."

"When he threw me in jail?"

"He…he told me you're a fine young man."

"He said that?"

"Yes," she nods so eagerly.

"And Tillo and Utz, you don't even know…. Their father…. You don't even know. " I can't say, of course, how Otto Smith came on our land and clocked Shaun in the head. Cullen land where Maman sleeps and my Grandma and my sisters and Pee Wee. Cullen land where the world cannot touch us, and where I hope to bring Sobe to keep her safe from 'them.'

"Does your father think to win those Smiths with a party? Do you think that?" I look around.

"I guess," she says staring at the ground. Then she does look up and I can't look away. Such a feeling is in me.

"Sobe," I say. I wish I could hold her like I had the day before.

But of course, I cannot.

She has to give me some answers. I don't even know what's coming. I don't know if I should come back around and watch her house at night, I don't know if I should insist she come home with us, or if I should see if Michael is still trying to sell that pistol.

Well that's what I don't know, but here's what I do—I am not very good at this.

"If he knew I'd told you as much as I have we'd be gone, Tonio. Do you hear me?" She is all out worried now.

"I won't tell. You couldn't beat it out of me," I say intensely.

"They are bad men," she says. "No more now."

"Do they look for you?"

She nods.

"What happens if they find you?" I say.

She shakes her head. "He would know. He would see it coming."

"You have to come on the farm. I could watch you there. You'd be safe. No one would find you there. You have to…."

She is shaking her head again. "Tonio. He's my dad. I wouldn't leave him. I couldn't leave my dad."

"But…."

"I couldn't. He keeps us safe, Tonio. He's…he's so much better now. But he needs me. I'm all he has."

Sobe's hand finds mine. She holds to me very tightly.

We look at one another. She is my America. For her…I would sacrifice. "Sobe, here's what I think. He was a lawman somewhere. He made enemies."

"Tonio," she says squeezing my hand.

"What happened to your mom?" I say. I don't want to know. I don't like stories of mothers…taken away.

She runs her teeth over her bottom lip. "You can't ask me anymore questions Tonio. If you're my friend, you won't."

"If you have to leave…how will I find you? Would you come back to me Sobe? Would you ever come back?"

She shakes her head, so quickly. "It won't happen. It's over now. We've only to be normal. You can't talk about this Tonio. If you stop…it goes away. Dad says it's gone away. We're just being careful now. It's better. It's fine. Please. I want to think about the party. I want to be happy."


	31. Chapter 31

Deep in the Heart of Me 31

The rest of the week leading up to Sobe's Halloween party is the most saintly and devilish of my life so far.

I turn into the scholar Maman has long prayed I would become. Albeit it's the topic of gangsters that leads me on this path.

But I have also moved into the realm of actually being a gangster though I don't have a Tommy Gun. And that's pretty much the whole thing-I get into debate over whether or not the federal government should have a say in the buying and selling of weapons with Miss Pat and several students.

Miss Pat says to save my opinions. We will debate several positions surrounding the topic of gangsters starting on Thursday. I am assigned to debate the newly passed National Firearms Act.

I don't want to debate for the Act, but against it. And I get lucky and Miss Pat puts me on the side I want although unfortunately with Utz and Tillo, but against Sobe and my sister. Sobe raises her hand and asks not to be put in this debate but Miss Pat says no one can change what she has decided and how do we like having a dictator?

Everything is a lesson with Miss Pat.

I do my best to ignore the Smiths. I assign them the presentation and say I'll do the talking.

And I don't mind being opposite Elsie. That's just like life pretty much, but the problem is she's heard all of my good arguments cause they come from Dad as he reads the paper at the table at night and orates with the pounding finger, so Elsie is well prepared to meet my onslaught.

Or so she thinks.

But I do not favor being against Sobe. I'm still trying to walk in her good grace without falling out of it like I did Monday morning. And she pulls in quiet once she's assigned her role against me and it puts me in a pickle.

But Wednesday and Thursday I prepare my points for the debate. I have given Tillo and Utz the job of finding pictures of the weapons in question. I figure they can stand mutely behind me holding their pictures. With me doing the actual debating we will have some slight hope of victory.

What I know from Dad's tirades is that this Firearms act is the first national law regulating firearms. It is meant to lay a heavy tax on the sale of certain kinds of weapons like sawed-off shotguns or machine guns. It's no secret why legislators need to do something to curb the easy sale of particular types of guns. Gangsters have been running all over this country stealing and shooting.

Just this year some of the most famous outlaws have been shot down. Some of my very favorites truth be told—Pretty Boy Floyd in May, and he once robbed a bank in St. Louis when I was four years old, John Dillinger in July, and Clyde Barrow and a woman he ran with, Bonnie Parker, just last week have met their bitter ends.

Dad has read us the articles from the paper. And Elsie has heard him same as me, and all he thinks. But what I have that Elsie does not is Dad's picture in his army uniform taken before he shipped over to fight in the Great War.

This picture is one of the things I'm most proud of in my life.

Miss Pat asked if I agreed with the hero that is my dad. I couldn't think of all it inspired in me when she said that.

Lately, a most confusing thing has begun to happen where I feel angry at him. It's for one reason or another. I have never felt angry at Dad. But now, I do. The confusing thing is how ashamed I feel. But that doesn't stop me. When I steal the mule, I'm going against him. And I know I'll do it, go through with it. And even last year, or a month ago I could not have lived if I went against him. But now I can. Live. See? It's very confusing.

But I look at him in that uniform with the high collar and the cap set on the side of his head at an angle that makes him look cocky and proud. And I know he asked no one's permission to do what he thought was right.

Maman loves him already when this is taken. He is sixteen and has gone in and lied about his age he is so eager to lick the Krauts. That's what he said. And they put him in a machine-gun battalion. And he did his job.

He gets out in nineteen-eighteen, marries Maman in twenty and I come along in twenty-one.

I look at this picture and his face is young, like mine. I see it in him even then, a calmness. And humor. He's strong.

He doesn't talk about the war. If you ask he will laugh or smile but he only gives one sentence and it's closed. But he stands in church on July Fourth when they ask the veterans to come forward and he holds out his hand to the flag when we say the Pledge of Alligance before service and he speaks in the loudest voice and he wipes at tears when it's done.

I think I need to make my debate with Dad's face before them. That's one thing Elsie won't see coming—Dad. I add his picture to my papers.

The day of the debate, the day before the party and the day before my theft of Otto's mule, I am practicing on the walk to school, talking outloud. I get to the schoolhouse, get inside, and Sobe is in her seat, her big eyes on me as I near her desk.

"Good morning Sobe," I say, my heart always happy when I see her.

"Good morning Tonio." She is looking at me. Upset already and I've not done a thing to earn it. Not yet.

I get everything on my desk, stacked nice and neat and she turns around, eying everything. "Well this is the day," she says.

"What day?" I ask.

"The debate."

"Oh. That." There are other things I'm thinking of.

"Are you ready?" she says.

I know Elsie talks about me. I can just imagine some of what's said. "Sure."

"Oh? You are so confident."

And you are so pretty, I think, but I shrug.

"Aren't you…confident?" I say. I can see she is troubled.

"I hate guns."

"Hate guns?" I say. It's ridiculous to say that. Her father is a lawman. She lives with guns so how can she be so narrow? How does she think we protect ourselves, or hunt? Does she want to go back to rocks and sticks next time we face the Kaiser or his like?

If those bad guys come…she should have a gun. She should own one and shoot one.

"Do you have a gun?" I say.

"No," she says like I'm crazy.

"You should."

"Not me," she says, her chin lifting and I know what that means.

But I must save my arguments. If this is what I'm up against, they are the ones with rocks and sticks.

Utz and Tillo come in then, the sound of their big boots resembling the sound of our team pulling the wagon in the mill. They each hold a piece of folded paper. They come over to me and I turn so I face both. I never let a Smith get behind me.

They each have drawn a weapon on butcher's paper. The drawings are crude and the paper looks used from holding the blood sausage these types love. They will add nothing to our presentation but embarrassment. I will keep them far enough to the wall that they won't dilute my speech.

It's weird to see them eager for my approval. I nod at the drawings and they nod back, like I'm the teacher. They awkwardly fold the drawings and I dismiss them.

Sobe looks at me. She smiles, but I see her wary and peaked. Perhaps the party is proving too daunting. Well I never voted for it, that's for sure.

I lick over my lips. I want to say that she shouldn't get mad over what I'm about to do—dismantle her argument in front of the teacher and class. But I don't want to say that. So I smile.

"You look like you're up to something," she says.

I keep the smile.


	32. Chapter 32

Deep in the Heart of Me 32

"This is my father," I begin, holding up the picture of Dad in his army uniform. "He fought in The Great War and it helped form his ideas about the right to bear arms."

I'm standing in front of the class and I can see the confused look on Elsie's face, but it quickly becomes a smirk. She realizes I'm pulling out the most powerful thing we have. Dad.

Sobe is rapt with attention. Too serious.

Miss Pat asks if I can pass the photograph so they can all look. Since it's under glass I don't mind. But Elsie seems to.

She raises her hand. Miss Pat gives her permission to speak.

"They should be careful," she says.

She means they shouldn't break the frame holding Dad's picture. I just wait for her to shut-up and let me talk. They know we're blood and God forbid they forget my best argument is her dad, too. No use to belabor it.

So I start my speech. "James Madison said, Americans have, 'the advantage of being armed' - unlike the citizens of other countries where 'the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.'

"Patrick Henry said, 'The great objective is that every man be armed. . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun.'

"George Mason said, 'To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.'

"Samuel Adams said, 'The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.'

"Alexander Hamilton said, 'The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.'

"Richard Henry Lee said, 'To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.'

"I got these quotes out of the St. Louis paper. The passing of The National Firearms Act this year caused some good deal of debate and my dad read us all of that after supper and he would tell us what he thought about the issue of bearing arms. Well we have grown up on that.

"Originally the Act was going to lay down some new rules about a person's right to bear arms. But there was some outcry so they narrowed it down to set a pretty heavy tax on selling machine guns and sawed-off shotguns mostly.

"Dad agrees with our founding fathers. He says the first step to losing freedom comes when people lose the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment states that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. Infringed means something is creeping around the edges, trespassing on the thing not to be trespassed upon. The National Firearms Act is an infringement on our right to bear arms.

"The kinds of weapons they have taxed beyond the common fellow's ability to pay are the very ones superior enough to withstand an enemy in the event of our need to militarily protect ourselves."

I can see Miss Pat mouthing, 'militarily,' as if she questions whether or not it's a word, but I don't worry about it I am sticking to my…guns.

"Well that's all I've got to say," I say.

I move to my desk and Tillo and Utz move behind me, all crinkling paper and heavy boots.

Miss Pat leads some clapping and others clap, especially some boys who laugh at what the Smiths have drawn, but they get a little loud for me, they say "Tonio!" And it feels kind of good.

Next Elsie and Sobe get up. Elsie is going to speak first as she holds her papers and glares at everyone for they are still rowdy for me.

Sobe stands with her hands behind her back. She is pale and solemn, as if she's about to announce she has a serious disease. I want to stand beside her, but of course I can't.

Everyone quiets down and Elsie begins.

"Remember the Valentine's Day Massacre?" She eyes the class boldly.

It starts everyone talking at once. Do we remember the massacre? It's all we talked about for a year after it happened. A bunch of Irish gangsters were lined along a wall and shot to death by other gangsters, two of which were dressed to look like cops.

"This is the result of the right to bear arms without control," Elsie says in that bossy voice I hate while she shakes her speech at us.

"People are tired of gangsters using these powerful weapons to rob banks and enforce gambling and sell bawdy women," and here the boys laugh because that postcard is still in their minds probably, "…and up until a year ago making alcohol to drink and selling it too. Something had to be done so they passed the National Firearms Act to try and curb this violence!"

Everyone claps and Sobe does not speak, rather she sits down with my sister. I think their argument is weak.

"Mr. Cullen," Miss Pat says looking so satisfied, like she agrees with Elsie. Well that is just fine.

I get up and walk forward. I won't use my paper this time cause I've run out of speech.

So I say, "When the Great War was over, not everyone was as lucky as my dad who returned to his parent's poor farm to try and make a living for him and the woman who is my mother.

"But it wasn't like that for everyone coming home. Lots didn't have jobs, see? So selling alcohol was illegal. They called it Prohibition and the gangs were making money off of black-market booze.

"So some guys returning from the war went to work for these gangsters—people who belonged to gangs. And they needed powerful weapons because they fought each other, the Italians and the Irish and the Jews and whoever else had a gang.

"So we're going to give up a right that keeps us free because people can't find jobs? I say no way. We don't create a bigger problem—a loss of freedom to protect ourselves- to solve another problem—people being poor and out of work and doing crime. FDR is making the jobs for people so what's the problem? The government can get off our backs."

The boys in class understand me apparently. They clap like thunder.

Miss Pat stands and quiets them down as I sit with the biggest smile on my puss that I probably ever had.

Sobe and Elsie have their heads together and they confer. Elsie straightens in her desk and Sobe walks forward. She stands before us, her face so serious once more it worries me.

"My dad has been a lawman for a long time," she says.

"Speak up," someone in back says and teacher says, "Louder Sobe."

Sobe takes in a big breath. She's about so pretty it breaks my proud happy heart.

"Like Tonio, my opinions come from my dad. He's been a lawman for a lot of years. He's seen all kinds of goings on that have to do with guns. Like Tonio's father he supports the Second Amendment and a citizen's right to bear arms."

She strides to where Corrine sits holding the picture of my father cause it somehow got stuck there. Sobe takes the frame from Corrine and goes back to the front. She holds the picture up so all can see.

I'm thinking, 'wait a minute. That's my deal.' But it's Sobe so I stay quiet.

"But freedom of any kind," she says, "is only as good as the frame that surrounds it." She steps to me then, third desk down in row four, behind where she sits and she gives me the picture of my father. She does not smile at me.

I take the picture with relief that she hasn't thrown it. I don't think she's mad, but she's not friendly either. Again she goes to the front of the room and pulls a small piece of paper from her pocket. Her hand is shaking.

"The Thompson Machine gun," she reads, "uses pistol instead of rifle ammunition and can be fired on the run. It weighs ten pounds, and fires standard .45-caliber automatic Colt pistol cartridge at a rate of eight hundred per minute from twenty-shot straight magazines or circular drums holding fifty or one hundred rounds," Sobe says.

Well I have to admit you can hear a pin drop now.

She looks at us and says, "It's no secret that at the Valentine's Day Massacre bodies were ripped into pieces from the amount of rounds fired into them."

I notice her voice is not shaking.

"That is the freedom to bear arms without a frame of good sense and prudent determination," she says.

Sobe walks to her desk, looks briefly at me, then turns with a kind of confident flourish and sits.

The girls clap with one driving sound.

Well, it looks like Sobe's confidence is back.

This is my third and final time up. I look at Utz and Tillo and their mouths are still hanging open and they are looking at me like I might as well say, "Pass."

I am Antonio Cullen. I stand and right the collar of my shirt and stride forward. I can't wait to hear what I'm going to come up with. It's not that far of a jaunt to the front. I stand up there and they are silent, frozen almost as they wait for me to do something great.

"If as many desperate criminals have the type of weapons my opponents claim," it hurts a little to call Sobe my opponent, but I'm out to win this, "then all the more reason to allow good men everywhere to have weapons that are up to the fray." I let that sink in for a second while I try to figure out where to go next.

Oh yeah. "That is the freedom men like my father carried the red, white, and blue into battle to protect, and not so some soft handed dry bones could sit up in Washington and slowly take away my liberty…," and I point now, slowly, to each and every one, "and yours.

That is about a direct quote from Dad. Elsie sits back hard in her desk and folds her arms.

I continue, "We are not armed so we can hunt. We are armed so, if the need presents itself, we can defend ourselves."

They get that. They are clapping and stomping even.

So I'm full gallop now, "As long as there are gangsters and killers and anarchists and fascists and dictators and tyrants we shall stand up for our Second Amendment right to bear arms."

They are still clapping but that's all right, I've gotten louder.

"Or…," wait, wait, wait, "…we shall be overcome and suffer the fate of those in graves who can no longer stand and protect their right to liberty."

It takes them a few seconds. My mind seems to be quicker than most…in here. But it hits them then and they go wild. "Tonio," they say. "Tonio."

I guess that's enough. Even Miss Pat is smiling. I run my hands around my belt and try to catch Sobe's eye but she looks at her desk and smiles this smile that is less friendly than her other look where she didn't smile at all. I pass her and sit in my desk.

Elsie is looking at Sobe for direction, but Sobe does not look across the aisle, she springs to her feet instead and clasps her hands behind her back again and takes her place up front.

They quiet down again. I quiet down. If she can best me now, she deserves to be carried on their shoulders.

"Is liberty the right to be just as hard and cruel and unfair and evil as the gangster or the killer or the anarchists or…the rest?"

No one dares answer cause no one knows.

"Is liberty my right to be equal in horror? My right to shoot people on the street, innocent people who happen to be in the wrong bank at the wrong time?"

Again we stare. What bank?

"Like the little girl in Chicago who was in the drugstore when one gang leader tried to kill another. She sat near the big picture window and the outlaw sprayed the building with rounds from his Tommy gun, hundreds of bullets, raining glass on a little girl just trying to drink a milkshake."

"Oh," the girls say.

"Should her mother have pulled a Tommy gun from her purse so she could return fire?"

The girls gasp.

"Afterall, the police had failed to protect her and her little girl. And it is her Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-protection. And she could shoot hundreds of rounds to match the rounds that tore up the drugstore and could have…should have killed her little girl."

The girls are saying, "No. No," at the thought of that little girl dying with a milkshake moustache.

"And if she then accidentally killed someone else's daughter who just happened to be walking down the street, then that person would also have the right to open fire with her gun and fire hundreds of rounds into…say a passing automobile with a family inside who are riding to their grandmother's house. Whoops, she didn't mean to kill their grandma and little Johnny."

The girls are saying whole sentences now. They are outraged.

"If you can shoot me in two," Sobe says, "then I can shoot you in two. It's only fair."

"Is it fair?" Utz asks Tillo.

"Shut up and listen," Tillo says back.

Good Lord.

"But where does it end?" Sobe says. "And who says when it is enough? Who says when enough have died or been maimed? Who says when enough windows have shattered and enough children have been cut by enough glass. Who says when the madness is over?"

She stops, looking fiercely at each of us. She gets to me and I stare back. Then I wink.

She quickly walks back to her desk and sits down, and Elsie claps fiercely, and she looks around and another one or two girls are intimidated enough to clap also, then more, then all of the geese flap their wings.

Miss Pat is on her feet, also clapping for Sobe. Miss Pat walks to the front of the room, but I bend closer to Sobe and I look at the back of her head, like I do, and today she wears her hair up, in a bun, and she is looking down and the back of her neck is very sweet, and very troubled. But I've always known.

Miss Pat says we will take a vote. "Think long and hard as our scholars have done a superb job," she says.

Then she has us stand, the five of us, meaning Utz and Tillo too, which is unfair and dumb.

The class applauds one more time. Then we sit.

"Sobe," I whisper, but she will not turn around or acknowledge me. "You did a good job," I say.

But she keeps her head forward.

I write her name on my paper. I fold it and when Miss Pat brings the basket I toss it in.


	33. Chapter 33

Deep in the Heart of Me 33

So the evening after the debate I am working in the barn near Dad. Now is as good time as any so I ask, "Dad…can I go with Pat to Springfield tomorrow night? He's selling the…colt. We plan to be home in time for Saturday evening chores."

Dad looks at me like he sees a fly land on my nose and strum the banjo.

"You would miss that party?" he says.

Well I did not expect that. I more expected a list of the work he'd have to do with me gone.

"Oh…well…," I say.

He throws back his head and laughs. Then he reaches and ruffles my hair very hard.

I smile. "What?"

"Girl can't compete with a livestock sale, eh boyo? Your mother…she thinks you're stuck on that Sobe." He is having a great time, my dad. I am stuck on that Sobe. Very stuck.

"Shaun has beaten you to it. He's going with Pat. He never mentioned you wanting to go as well," Dad says.

That isn't the plan. Shaun is to stay here. He's to be working around innocent as pie. How else can I get free to go to the party?

"Well with both of us gone…," I say like I'm torn about watching the place.

"We'll manage for one day. But you might have to miss some school if I need you to make it up."

"Yes Dad."

"Oh…and it's up to your mother of course," he says walking off talking to himself, "It's a fine day in the heart of America."

I don't know what's got him so happy.

He's handed me off to the killer or all good ideas. Maman.

11111111

Shaun tells me later he's decided to go along to Springfield.

"I know," I say as I wash at the sink. "My dad told me." Enough said on that. Pee Wee is getting carried away with the water and I put my hand over his littler ones.

"No harm in it," Shaun says. "It's best I'm not found around here. That's all."

I look at him. I don't know what he's up to. And since Dad is not nailing me to the place, it doesn't worry me at all.

So that evening we talk about the debate around the supper table. Well Elsie does. She knows every word of it. She has the same thing as me—the catch-bag in her head.

My Dad is very interested and proud. He can't lose here, either way. This time it's Elsie. By a single, deliberate vote.

Dad says he hopes Sheriff can straighten out Sobe's way of looking at this matter of guns and freedom and Elsie should know better.

"I think our bright girl makes a fine point," Maman says.

Elsie beams under Maman's praise, but she has this look for Dad as she goes on eating her food with tiny thoughtful bites.

And as far as Sobe winning, she gave me good as she got but of course I am right. Sobe spoke so strongly I knew there was truth somewhere in what she said.

My strength came from Dad. But Sobe went against her dad and still she was strong. I could not help but admire her guts even if I found her words unfortunate and troubling.

When I steal the mule, I will be strong.

And I will get to the bottom of Sobe's words.

11111

So on Friday Sobe skips school to work on her party. That's what Elsie tells me.

I am so disappointed to think of the day without her I think of skipping myself. But I'm being the good boyo, the very good oldest son.

So I do not even see Sobe to tell her I'm not sure I'm coming to her party. Well I am coming. But I will arrive much later than the gaggle and the herd. Good thing Maman and Dad are also going. They will drive the family-load so they can scatter about in their costumes and carry on like they do.

For once, I am free of them.

But the thing now is to get my mother to consent to letting me pretend I'm going to Springfield.

After school I catch Mom and Dad in the yard. Dad says to, "Let the boyo go."

But Maman says, "He has only been to the city with his father and now he's to go off with Pat? That will be the day I'm in my grave."

I groan. "When Dad was my age…," I start to say, then she holds up her 'hush' finger to me and I back down for even if Dad agrees with me, to go against Maman in any way means Dad will take me down.

My plan is this-I am going to change my mind last minute and hopefully win some points with Sobe when I go to her party afterall. It's a reasonable idea that I help Pat catch the colt and get it loaded, then decide I'd rather go to the party. And this way I have all the time in the world to get that mule to co-operate, see?

All is fair in love and war. Maman says that, usually with a terrible sigh, but I am just now contemplating its meaning and finding agreement on both ends.

Maman relents because Shaun is going, too.

Do they know him at all? I'm not going to argue it, but I'm better off with Pat. Crazy as he is, he's worse with Shaun as he is now, in his grief.

On the way to the barn Jasper wants to know if I am coming along to put Miss Charlotte's outhouse on top of her porch roof. And they are filling Miss Pat's sidecar with oats.

I make a horse sound. A blow through my lips like he's crazy. I have bigger fish to fry.

Once I'm in the barn, Shaun enters. He tells me my mother wants me, and the usual teasing that goes along with that. He's pretty wound up and I know he's been drinking—the smell and his eyes.

I get to the house and inside, in the kitchen and all over the parlor even there are little cakes sitting on boards covered with paper. Pee-Wee is so eager to show me, grabbing my hand and taking me on a tour.

"Well what do you know," I say. They are small cakes cut like diamonds. They are orange colored or white or chocolate, my favorite, with candy sprinkles on top.

"You have to deliver these to Sobe's house," Maman says. "Take the truck. I will help you load them."

I hadn't planned on seeing Sobe. Not before the…ass-caper. I don't know why I'm not happy. I've missed her all day.

"Get Jasper to very carefully help you set the boards in the bed. Do not drive like a fool," Mom says.

"I don't," I say, then add, "Ma'am."

"Then prove me wrong. Get your brother and start loading." Then she adds, "And not Emmett."

"I go?" Pee Wee says. He loves to stand next to me while I grind through the gears.

"Not this time," I say.

His bottom lip juts out.

"You have to stay here and get ready for the party," I remind him.

"Scarecrow," he says.

Yes, he's going to be a scarecrow.

I pull the truck to the front of the house and Jasper and I load the cakes. I put one board on the seat. Dad has extended the front seat as it's too narrow to hold him and Maman and Granma. So I have just enough room for all the cakes but no room for Jasper. Perfect.

"Maman, have you decided about Springfield?" I say before she goes back in the house.

""You may go. I will trust you. Don't make me sorry. Or you will be sorry."

"Thank you Maman." I kiss her cheek in spite of her threats.

I get in the truck then before she can say anymore.

"Do not eat them," she calls as I drive away. She must think me a moron. I wait until I'm down the road to shove a whole cake into my mouth. They are as good as they look.

I eat another and lick my fingers when I'm not shifting onto the main road.

1111111

I pull up to Sobe's yard and Elsie notices me right off. I've driven like I have nitro in this truck, checking that the cakes aren't bouncing all over the bed.

"Oh, oh," the girls all say. Right away I see Sobe, wearing a jacket that she has buttoned to her chin. Her skirts blow around and I try not to look because I'm not wanting to do that to her in front of all these especially. So I hop out and they are either mean or shy. Mostly mean. "Oh it's Tonio. Did you bring your Tommy gun?" And they laugh.

"Hello Sobe," I say, ignoring the rest.

"Hello Tonio," she says, her cheeks so pink, and her lips…so pink.

"Um," the others say.

"Open the gate," Elsie snaps at me when she knows how to do it herself.

I pull the pins and lower the gate and I pull out the first long board. "Where do these go?" I say.

"You have icing on your mouth," Elsie snaps like I'm Pee-Wee. I go for it with my tongue and sure enough. I must look like Pee Wee too. Sobe is smiling as she pulls off another board.

"Careful," I say to her and only her, "they are heavy."

Elsie scoffs. Yes I would let her pick the truck up by herself. But this is different…with Sobe.

So I carry a board by myself, up on my shoulder. And they oh and ah around me and Sobe and Elsie each carry one.

I am shown where to put them, on a long table with pies made out of pumpkin and apples. Jack-o-lanterns are in front and all along the table. I hear another truck pull up and it misfires and I know it's Jim before I turn, and he parks and jumps out and lowers the bed and it's pumpkins and gourds. Well I could have brought those.

Then Fat Ned arrives and asks for help with a crock of cider. I help him get that on a stump there in the yard. Then the preacher and his wife arrive in their wagon. They have tubs of apples and balls of popcorn.

Then my own Uncle John with firewood for a bonfire.

When did all this happen? I help Uncle John unload. We need this truck to haul the ass in. "Are you going straight home?" I say.

He doesn't answer.

"Oh Sobe this," and "Sobe," that. I can barely get a look. I was patient at school on Thursday, but it's getting old today, even though I didn't plan to be here at all. Blast it, Mom. If I could ever be left alone for a minute.

"Well I guess I'll be going," I say loudly as Sobe laughs and claps her hands when Jim gets up in a tree and hangs like a monkey to place a lantern there.

"Go then," Elsie says like I'm an ant at a picnic.

"Well I'm going," I say, but my feet don't move. Sobe turns then and sees me watching her. Her face gets serious like I took the joy right out of her again. She takes wide steps toward me.

"You did a fine job standing up for your point at the debate Tonio," she says.

I look around and some are eying me. I told her right off she did a fine job, but she's just now getting to it for me. Glad this complement was not a drink of water on the desert. But it nearly is I'm that parched to hear her voice.

I fold my arms. "Looks like a fine party. Oh I will not be here, by the way."

"Yes Elsie said. You never did say you would come. I just hoped…. Well, you'll miss the fun," she says, then she smiles and points at my cheek, "But not some of the treats."

I scrub my fist over my cheek. Damn it.

"Well don't miss me too much," I say.

"I won't," she says quickly.

Oh, so it's that way?

"Well I think you should walk me to my truck," I say.

"Are there more cakes?" she says.

"Never mind," I say. I stalk off then and I am halfway there when she catches up and I am relieved.

"You can't even bother to come to my party," she says.

"Well I haven't been to Springfield without Dad before."

"Oh, then don't let me stop you."

"I guess I'm not."

We are squared off is what I'd call it. My arms are still folded and her hands are on her hips.

"I would come," I say, and her face softens. "I have to talk to Pat. Maybe he will go on without…me."

She looks away from me, but she stays put. Elsie is calling her.

"I have to go Tonio. I suppose…you must too."

"I didn't come to ruin your…good feelings," I say. "Sobe…."

She sniffs but I can't exactly see tears. "You make me mad," she says.

"You make me mad," I counter like we're still debating.

"I shouldn't make you mad if I'm your friend," she says hotly.

I want to say 'same to you,' but I don't. I say, "You're my 'dear' friend, remember?" I say it kind of mean.

"Are you making fun? Antonio?" she says this with a very angry hurt sound in her voice.

"I…I asked you to forgive me for that." For telling her she couldn't say Antonio.

"I do. It's just…you won't even see my costume," she says, not making much sense.

I take a step closer. "Sobe…I'll come if I can. Do me a favor and stay close to your father in all the hub-bub."

"I'm safe, Tonio. Go on to Springfield with a clear mind."

I look over at the others milling about. "I still don't like it. That what you said in the debate…there was truth in it."

"It was in the papers, Tonio. Did your father not read that as well? I told you my father takes care of me. You should do what you want," she says.

Others call to her. Sobe, Sobe. She's a very impossible girl.

"I just wanted you to come. But…it doesn't matter. I have to…," she thumbs behind her.

"Come here first," I say. It's all I can think of. All I think of. Words are just getting us in more and more trouble.

She looks at me. Swallows. "Why?"

"Come here." I stand and wait.

She ducks her head a little but she steps toward me.

I reach for her and pull her the rest of the way behind the truck. The bed is not as tall as us but the cab blocks their view for a minute.

"Sobe," I say, and I put my fingers under her chin and lift a little. "I don't want to be your dear friend."

"Tonio…."

"I want…," I bend to kiss her. I feel the earth lift and slam me back down. But I hold my lips to hers. Even if Jesus comes, even then I shall not be the first to break this.

They are calling her, they are looking for her.

"She's with Tonio," I hear and it is the pastor's wife.

I lift then, in spite of my resolve. Her eyes are still closed.

"Go on now," I say.

Her eyes open and I shall never forget this, the look she has there.

"Go on," I say softly.

Neither of us move.

"Tonio," she whispers.

I kiss her once more and it's just as powerful. When I lift this time she is looking at me. "Go on now."

She takes two steps away.

I turn and get in the truck. I start the engine and I'm backing away from her and she has stopped and she's watching me.

I hit the brakes and the engine rattles and pings. She is looking at me, backdropped by all the people working to make her party nice.

She lifts her hand and waves. Then her hand moves to her mouth and she throws me a kiss.

I haven't thought about it, but my hand is on my cheek like some stupid girl.

I have to grin. And she grins back.

Then she runs off and I shift the gears and back out. The limit for speed is twenty, and we're lucky if this truck gets fifteen but right now it couldn't go fast enough to suit me.

I want to get back to her.


	34. Chapter 34

Deep in the Heart of Me 34

We come from the south of Otto's property. It's been a million jokes in the cab and they pass a bottle. I've been riding in back with the colt and I knock on the window when I think we're in a good place. Pat pulls near some trees and he turns off the engine. I need to know exactly where he's at. Shaun gets out and he's laughing as I pass him. "Get your ass on that ass boyo."

If Otto has the beast in the upper paddock then I'll be coming close to the house and the poker game. There's the main road close-by but Pat can hardly wait there, so we've come along behind the place where the creek runs and the bottom road there. It looks haunted at night cause it's the place that always floods and the water runs so high over the road you can barely pick your way through on horseback and it's easy to get off the road and the current is so strong you can get swept out so quickly. It's an eerie place with gnarled trees and debris piled in front of the ones who have stood sentinel for so many years, refusing to budge and sticks and leaves and animal bones have gathered before them like armor.

It's not flooded now. It's bare and silent except for the breeze. The water runs under the bridge and along the banks of the creek like it should, waiting for its chance to swell and break free once more, but not tonight, no.

I wonder how Sobe's party is going. It's already nine. Soon my dad will gather up my family and they will be back at the farm tired and full of sugar and cider and memories of the best time. When did I choose against them? When did I go my own way? Well just now, I think. Just tonight.

"You won't see my costume," Sobe said to me. And I pressed my lips to hers and the preacher and Fat Ned, well I don't think they saw, and if they did, then they did. There is not a drop of sorry in me. Sorry for what? I love her.

I love Sobe. You wonder how you will know and then it happens and you know.

I'm running through the bottom land and it's a thready sky and a hoot-hoot from an owl and deeper I go the more I know I'm in love now.

11111

That damn mule is so near the house it makes me groan and laugh all in one. I'm standing in the trees looking at this nice homey scene. Otto's cabin out here away from the ramshackle house the family lives in. He's got him a bony wife and Otto and Utz who are the tail-end of a string of older ones, most never done too much but have other strings of tow-headed Smiths and what have you's.

But Otto runs his game here, and most locals know it. What he does with the money is anyone's guess. Couldn't tell it by looking around here. So I am watching and someone comes out to piss in the yard and goes back inside.

I don't know if this mule is broke to saddle or rider for that matter cause he shows this thing at the fair. But he likes to parade it, he loves that.

So it looks quiet enough and here I go then, running half bent over, I don't know why, well I'm sneaking. And I get in the paddock and there are a couple of others so I walk slow then and I go for that mule. And he don't know me, don't like it, and an apple from my pocket and he knows that and goes to take it and takes my finger too and damn it to hell anyway.

I remind myself again they came on our land and that's why I'm here on his, on Otto Smith's. So I wrap my finger in my kerchief and that mule runs a little and I have another treat and I get that and hold it forth but no dangling finger this time and that beast takes it in his big teeth and I jump on his back then and he takes two steps and quick as lightening kicks his hinders to the sky and I pitch forward naturally, my face planted behind its ears but by sheer determination I hang on. He runs that fence and the others have plenty to say. A dog picks it up and comes running and the beast kicks again and hee-haws and I'm using my legs to get it to move, but it is too busy fighting me and I readjust my ass over its spine to put it on balance and it still don't want me and the door of that cabin comes open and a square of light and I am low over that donkey's neck and voices and the door shuts then opens real quick and I think, "ut-oh."

I stay low and that dog is carrying on and about that time several are out now and it's a damn full moon and, "Someone is out there," a man says. And then the whole world blows up…or the outhouse at least and this beast I am on rears up and I am hanging onto its neck for dear life, then it leaps over the fence and takes off like engine number nine and we are flying toward the house and a shot flies overhead as we tear off in the wrong damn direction.


	35. Chapter 35

Thanks to the girls at Robsessed for mentioning this story on FF Friday. Thank you readers and reviewers.

Deep in the Heart of Me 35

This mule is running for the trees and I give up any hope of telling it what to do. I adjust myself cause its spine has a tendency to fit right up the crack of my ass and I tighten my hold and Lord God I have never been closer to death and so alive at once.

I don't remember much after that explosion but this mule did hop over the roof to the outhouse laying there in the yard where it left the four walls like a giant fist came up out of that shit filled hole and punched it off like a hat.

We get on the main road and from behind me I hear the engines starting. Holy God and all the saints. This beast has run clean off from the bottoms. I will soon have all of Dewberry on my tail. I take off my belt and loop it under the neck of this beast and I dig in my heels and tell it to move its ass, which is funny but not so much right now for a fact.

I take that same belt and whack its ass and it does take off then. I run it off the road along Otto's fence. Come on now, come on. I see the end of the fence and tear off across the field. We are gunning for the trees.

The trucks I heard from back at the shack are hitting the road now and I hear voice but I am prevailing on this beast to make time. We are cutting for the trees but from those very ones a shot comes right for us and I lean low and using my belt around its neck I point that beast to a far right. They must be on horseback too, and this is a fine mule. No wonder Otto is proud. Now I could give him up and get home best way I could, make for Pat if he's still waiting, and if he's not I shall happily go to jail and swing for the pleasure of killing him.


	36. Chapter 36

Deep in the Heart of Me 36

I head west. And soon, not soon enough, but soon I am going through the woods, and making time, hitting wide open field and running hard and this beast just stops. I fly over its shoulder and I roll and get up saying through my teeth, "Son of a bitch. Son of a jack-bitch."

It takes a step away from me then and I still have one end of my belt in my hand and I want to beat the living shit from it.

"Come on now," I say so kindly. "Come on now you jack-bastard. That's right," I say as I approach.

It is huffing and making its sound like a horse but not, like a donkey but not quite and I am breathing hard.

I get close and it's twitchy but it stays put and allows me to touch its withers and I hop on its back. I don't use the belt at all I nudge this beast with my knees and it takes off and I think something gets settled between us. At least for another five minutes.

I finally reach the bottoms and it won't be long before they figure it out and come round in those trucks.

I get to the road newly graded by the CCC and I can see I'm half a mile down and I get to it then, come on mule. He trots and shakes me to kingdom come and I get him to gallop some, more like a lope that jars my teeth. I know I reopened that knee that was nearly healed from my fight with Tillo. But I don't have time to worry about it or my finger.

Come on Pat, be there, I think as we round the bend, but he's not there and I hear a truck coming and this mule puts on the brakes and I hop off this time and I put my belt around his neck and I can't get him to budge. I pretty well drag him a few feet and he's half in the trees and half out and this is where I might be done. There's no way we won't be spotted.

That truck gets close and I can just see and it's Shaun I'm looking at, Shaun standing in back with that colt and looking in the brush alongside of the road. "There he is," they say.

"Yeah here I am," I say. But I won't talk much. There's no time.

Pat is out and opens the back of the horse box and pulls down the ramp Uncle John made and I coax Jack Bastard up that ramp and they steer clear cause he'd kick them to kingdom come if they got behind him.

Shaun ties him to the front of the box and that mule don't like it and Pat closes up the box and it kicks then, it's hooves bucking against the gate.

"Oh shit," Pat says.

Shaun is laughing. "He's a devil ain't he?"

I am over the side and trying to calm that critter down. The colt is carrying on cause it don't want to ride next to the devil anymore than I do.

"Try riding him in the dark with gunshots flying. Or better yet an outhouse blowing to kingdom come!" I say.

Pat is laughing and singing as he gets in the cab. That mule is leaning but there is not another truck around here with a bed made long enough for a mule to stand in and we can thank Uncle John for those modifications but even still transport is hard on animals, and kicking back like that isn't good for their back or legs. And I don't know why but I kind of like this son of a bitch, this mule, better than the human company I find myself in.

I am glaring at Shaun over the animal's back.

"You did splendid, Boyo, fook if you dint," he laughs. The Irish comes with the drinking. It always does. In Dad too. In all of them.

Pat is heading out and he gets to Neibour's and Pat hops out of the bed and moves the gate and back in and we drive through.

Crossing Neibour's farm will take them to Miller's Road and they will take that until it runs into the main road. With this added load they won't get to Springfield until that sale is started.

"Who's idea was the dynamite?" I ask Shaun.

He grins at me.

"You could have told me," I say.

"Boyo," he laughs. He hiccups and grins and repeats that a few times.

"They're looking," I say.

"Nah. They went ten different ways. No one wants to get caught in that game. Not with the old ladies waiting at home for the money," he says.

"Someone shot at me."

"Me too," he says and he laughs, then, "Boyo,come on."

"Was that Dad's dynamite?" I ask.

He laughs. "Uncle John's. He doesn't ask as many questions that's for sure."

And so Pat takes it slow and so we ride like thieves in the night. Like bootleggers.

I keep the mule quiet but I'm fresh out of apples. Pat thought to bring a bag of feed and I let Shaun learn the hard way that the mule can bite.

"The thing bit me," Shaun says.

I keep my lip buttoned.

It's an eternity before we get to the main road. I'm as tired as I can be. Before they let me out Shaun wants me to tip the bottle with them and I wonder if it would help me wake up. So I take a swallow. Then another. And I like the warm feeling enough as they leave me there in the dark after telling me again what a man I've become.


	37. Chapter 37

Deep in the Heart of Me 37

Thing of it is Dewberry is five miles from home. And far as my parents know I'm on my way to Springfield with Pat and Shaun.

So I'm out all night if I want to be, and I've not a thing to occupy myself presently but a limp and another three miles to town—to Sobe's.

My plans to visit Sobe are upside down, but then again that's right where I'm headed. There's a chance her dad gets called out I could wait and see and go a-courtin' before she got over to the widow Olmstead. I could kiss her again, I'll bet. She doesn't put up a fight on that. Well I think I might be uncommonly handsome then. That's why the girls look at me. They say I'm good to look at. They say that.

I quickly feel my face for new wounds or scratches but I've come out well I think. Except for the knee. And my hand.

And Dad seems proud of me mostly. He introduces me to everyone with pride even if he kicks me right in the ass sometimes and works me like a mule.

I have to laugh to think of it all, I do.

Here I am walking this road and it's nothing to me. I held my own with some of the worst this county has. They come on our land again and I'll do worse. I'll be the worst if that's what it takes.

They should have told me about the dynamite. But I might have said use two sticks. I might have said use three.

I wish I could get a couple more sips of that fine liquor in me. I pretty much never felt like this before. Not on Dad's wine at all.

Dad makes a barrel of lightening, every year, but we're not to take it unless Mom fixes it with honey when we are sick. I've been a good boyo for so long. I make myself sick with how good I've been.

I wonder what else they withhold from me that I need to know about, to discover. I'm pretty tired of being told what to do. By them and the preacher on Sunday and now Miss Pat Rivers who looks like a man by the way.

I was right to walk out of school. Maybe I never should of went back. But I was good in that debate. I shook that boring place to kingdom come with that one.

Sobe now…well she's a river, that girl.

I hiccup and I laugh. I bend over laughing. Hell if that wasn't the best thrill of my life riding that mule across Otto's yard and them pouring out from the game and shooting at me. Then that outhouse blew. And now it's so funny, finally it's just so funny I am bent over it's that good. I'll bet they had no idea…no idea at all what had befell them. Or befallen them either.

So here I am bent over and I'm laughing and in-between, I think I hear it, someone coming on horseback. I straighten. I won't run. I don't think.

But in the distance, I can just see it and I walk that way.

A beast without a rider.

A beast I know all right.

It is that…beast.

That Jack…Bastard.

And I am sober just that quick.

And I am amazed.


	38. Chapter 38

Deep in the Heart of Me 38

We walk toward one another like wary old friends who fought on different sides of a battle.

"What the…?" I say.

I can see that gash above his knee, just like me, same leg if I don't count his two in back, same leg in front is what I mean.

"Well what happened?" I say but he don't answer thank God.

So I run my hand from his head along his neck and I get on in my usual fashion except I land on my belly on his back and ridge of bone and he is patient while I swing a leg over and groan a little.

I walk him slow and make sure he is sound enough for this growing boyo, and he walks solid and I do not hurry but I take him back the way he came and dread is upon me. So much dread.

It is Halloween all right, well two days past. I do not hope to come on trouble, I do not, but how else could it be that beast is walking free and not on his way north to be sold?

I shut that down, that shouting voice of woe. My eyes are open like two big headlights, cutting through the blue-washed moonlight taking in the shadows that didn't bother me at all a moment before when I was…drunk and carefree.

How can I get about two inches tall so quickly? I am looking right and left and right and left and in front and behind, waiting for that one fellow who rides holding his own head to come screaming down on me.

Well Sobe…I said I was a better man than those others. I think I could be. If I make it through this dreadful night.

I hurry that mule along a little. I know he is hurt, but he is tough inside, the best kind of fellow. How is it he got Otto Smith for a handler? This life is no kind of fair. I know that for sure.

I sound like Shaun.

Shaun, where are you? What have you and Pat done now?

So I am about holding my breath as I gather my courage and move this mule along and I am watching, and I see it in no time at all, the place where something left the road. No time at all I come up on it and see the scrub laid over and another twenty feet in see the back of Uncle John's truck and the wood fence that raised the height of the gate is broken through where that mule must have jumped. I dismount and go in and I have no more claim on that mule, he can stay or go. He's alive at least, but the others, I don't know. The colt is gone. From what I can see, he's not in the bed. It's empty. I round the truck and it's not easy with the small trees bent over. The truck has come to rest against an oak. It still runs. I see Pat in the cab and his head is against the window, face turned to the side. I get the passenger's door open and he comes to a little, moaning at least, blood coming down his face from a gash in his forehead. He coughs and throws up, right there, all down his front.

"Pat," I yell. "Where's Shaun?"

"Wha…?" he says. "Tonyo?"

"Where's Shaun?"

He looks around, lurches the truck's door open and falls out of the truck. "Oh…," and I can't make it out after that. Can't figure what he's saying I go around front and it's dented in, but not like he'd smashed it there, more like he rolled there.

He's calling to Shaun. His voice gets stronger and more worried.

"Shaun," he's saying.

About the time he finds Shaun and calls for me. Shaun is lying in some scrub near the side of the truck. I can't see what's wrong with him.

"Oh God," Pat is saying. "He's shot. He said that. He said he's shot."

"Who shot him?"

"He's shot…," Pat keeps saying in this breathy voice. He sounds mad.

Pat struggles to get Shaun in a hold. "Grab his fuckin' feet!" he screams at me, and I scramble to do that.

We trip and fall and slip and slide and get him in the truck's bed. And he doesn't come too, but we get there and I see it now, blood soaked through on the back of his shirt. Pat is red from it, from carrying Shaun.

"Who shot him?" I say.

"I don't fuckin' know," Pat screams. "Who do you think! Smith!"

He hurries to get back in the truck and grinds it into the gear for back up and we move some, rock a little, move some more and with a terrible surge we get out of there. Pat gets on the road and stops.

"Get out," he yells at me from inside the cab.

I don't understand.

"Get out," he screams.

I have been holding Shaun's head on my knee. I think he's breathing. Maybe it's wishful thinking. But I can't leave him like this.

Pat is screaming at me. Then he gets out of the truck and comes in the bed like a crazy fool and grabs me and starts to drag me out and I fight him, but he's too strong. Next I know I'm on the ground.

"Get home. Don't tell anyone about this. You weren't with us. You didn't see us. You left after we loaded the colt. That's all."

I get on my feet. "Where…what…."

"To the Doc's—what do you think?"

"What if he's…what if…?"

Then he gets in the truck and takes off and I'm standing there looking after.

But I'm not alone. Standing side of the road twenty feet away is that mule.


	39. Chapter 39

Deep in the Heart of Me 39

Shaun might be dead. He looked dead. Oh God, God. What if Shaun is dead?

My heart hammers so hard, and I can't breathe.

He must have gotten shot in the yard. Could he go that long and not know? Why didn't he tell us?

I sink down right there, middle of the road I just sink down.

I don't know what to do. Pat said to go home. I guess I better do that. But what if Shaun dies?

That mule steps into the road. He's chewing away and looking at me. I don't want him to leave. I surely need him. I slowly get on my feet. I'm a little wobbly, a little drunk still.

I just walk right up to that mule and he makes it clear he's not done with his meal, but I get on him, and it's deplorable what a show that must be, but he stands for me and I get up there and he lets me know we are only moving now on his time as I am the beggar and the tables have turned.

But it's not long we are taking that road at a deliberate pace. I am not upset or feeling anything but a numbness of sorts. Every now and then I forget where I'm going, then I remember and I don't know if I am going right, then I remember again.

Somewhere in there I cry some. I wish I didn't, but tears come and I don't make noise with them which is all I can do to not be a girl.

But I come to the place where I cut back through Neibour's. And I slowly get to the bottoms and it's all I can think to do, and I am not thinking I'm just going. So I get through the bottoms and I enter Smith land. I know that first step. See the mule is going home and I'm allowing it.


	40. Chapter 40

Deep in the Heart of Me 40

There is the paddock fence I entered when I took Jack Bastard, the bravest, brightest mule that ever lived. So I get off Jack and the man in me is there again, maybe first time, or at long last.

So I get Jack in the paddock there and I'm off him now. I check his leg and the wound does not go deep in the muscle. He will carry a scar but he'll mend well.

Will Shaun? I don't know. He might already be strumming a harp. Oh God I can't think of it.

I walk then, to the paddock fence and that cabin shows a lamp inside, and I pass that outhouse roof laying belly up that a way, and I think I smile, which is the first thing I've done hasn't been sober and stiff. But it doesn't alter my intention at all to stay my course. There is a guard there, a fat fellow comes out of the shadows.

"Right there," he tells me and his gun on me and that's not my first time. Many a boyo has had his gun on me in the woods when we shoot for fun.

"I put a mule in the paddock I think belongs to Mr. Smith," I say.

"I saw," big belly says, spitting his chaw and holding his gun so he can shoot me right through the heart if the notion takes him.

"I'm Tonio Cullen. My dad is…."

"I know who," he says.

"Well you can get that gun off me," I suggest.

The door to the cabin opens then. It is a bleary eyed Otto Smith in his longjohns.

"Who's this thief?" he says. He looks like an old Tillo.

"I found your mule," I say.

He stares at me while he motions Belly should lower his gun. "Found?" he says.

"He's that one you're so proud of," I say thumbing behind me toward the paddock.

He stares some more. If he hopes I'll break he's wrong. I believe everything I'm saying. See, that's the trick.

"How you know that?" Otto says pulling up his suspenders.

"Everyone knows that," I say.

"You're…."

"Tonio Cullen. I go to school with Tillo and Utz."

"'Found' him, eh?" he folds his arms. "You tell me how you found him."

I move my hands to my hips and throw my weight on one leg. "Found him near Neibour's farm. Just walking down the road. He came right to me. Well I had an apple. I'd been working for Uncle John earlier. Before we set out to prank Neibour's. Then I got pranked and left on the road. Guess it was providence."

"Providence?" He spits very near my boots.

"Seems so. I best get going. My dad don't take to me being late."

"You hold on," Otto says.

I had taken a step like I needed to run, but I stop now. "Yes Sir?" I say to this gangster who'd been on our land and clocked Shaun, this thief.

He goes in the house then and comes out. "You see anybody else on the road? Anyone around my mule?"

"No sir."

"You boys been blowing things up tonight?"

"Um…we put an outhouse on a teacher's roof."

He stares. I stare.

"That mule has a cut on its leg," I say.

"Let's see," he says and he goes back in the house and I stare at Belly and he stares at me. It's just one long night of staring.

Otto comes out with a coal oil lamp and he walks a little ahead of me to the paddock with Belly behind us. We trudge quiet and Belly has the gun.

So we get to the paddock and Otto opens the gate. We go in, us three and Belly closes the gate and Otto stands there with the lamp and makes a clicking sound and Jack Bastard makes that half whinny half hee-haw sound is the nearest I can describe it and I know the way of it, half-Maman and Granma's Italian and half of Dad's Irish, ignoring half of Dad's French of course. But it all comes together and the family makes a language it can understand. It's that way with this mule and Otto Smith.

And the mule comes slow and he stands before Otto and that one makes a sound and digs a nub of carrot from his pocket and the mule eats that and does not bite Otto's hand but I notice how flat he makes it.

Then J. B. leaves him and comes to me, sniffing me over like Tibby might. I pretend I don't know about its big ornery teeth, and keep my bitten hand in my pocket.

"There now, he likes you," Otto says.

He sets the lantern on the ground and looks at J. B.'s leg. Belly steps forward too.

"Don't think it goes to the muscle. His step is sure," I say. "I'd mix some sugar and Iodine. You got a clean towel?"

They ignore me.

Finally Otto raises and looks at me. "You say you come on him on the road? All the way to Miller Road?"

I shrug. Further than that, but I don't say.

"When I was a boy I saw a man hung for stealing a horse," he says.

I do not speak. I know old people have seen a lot of things. So we stand there a bit.

"Were you in the Great War like my Dad?" I say, knowing he didn't go. Boys know that about each other's fathers. In our town, it matters more to the sons if their father went than it matters to our Dads.

He doesn't answer about the war.

"Well my dad saw people hung for nothing. And they'd leave them there," I say. "My dad…it's made him tough…that war."

We are staring again.

"If he finds who came on our land…well he's looking. Asking questions. Sheriff too."

"Belly will take you home," he says.

"I'm not going home. I'm going to the sheriff's. His daughter. Should I tell him about your trouble?"

"You should not," he says.

More looking.

"It's no trouble," I say. "He'd come right out and investigate. Does he know about this place?"

He gets out his little money purse then. He looks at Belly, then me, then he unbuttons it and licks his thumb and I can see that purse is fat with money.

He counts out three bills and I stand there.

He folds those bills, puts the purse back into his pocket, looking at me the whole time, then hands me that money and I say, "Oh no sir."

"Take it," he says none too kindly.

So I do. With my bitten hand I take it. I count it there in front of him. Fifty dollars.

"Don't show around here again," he says.

"Oh. No sir," I say.

"Belly will take you home," he says.

"No sir," I say.

"He will take you away from here," he says more firmly.

I look at that one, who still holds the gun which he uses to motion I should move toward the truck.

I comply.

If Belly doesn't kill me and Shaun lives I have his money. I have it.

But if Belly shoots me it ends like this. Maman will never get over it. She had high hopes for me. And if Shaun dies, I can pay for a very grand funeral at least.

But the saddest thing would be to lose the chance to love Sobe.

I hope Belly doesn't mess with me.

For his own sake.


	41. Chapter 41

Deep in the Heart of Me 41

Belly drives us down to the bottom road and he pulls over in that dark foul place and I think, 'there is not a way this side of glory I am dying here. I am not meant to.'

He has a pistol pointed at me and he says, "Give me that money."

And I say, "No."

He says, "That's not the way it works around here boy."

And I get mad to think he tells me how it works around, 'here.'

He tries to slap me, but I knock his arm away. I am strong. Strong from working the fields and animals and lifting. I am strong and he doesn't know how strong, and I don't.

He grabs my hair and shoves that gun under my chin and he says, "Give me that money you little fucking fat pants."

"All right, mister," I say. "Let…let me get to it." I lean forward a little to make for the money and he eases back with the gun and I go for the wrist of the hand that's holding the pistol. I've got both hands on it and he grabs my hair and pulls my head back and I leave off one hand and elbow his face and my good hand, which is my bad hand, is bleeding and it's getting on him and he uses his elbow but I get my feet up and I'm kicking him, kicking him like that mule taught me.

I reach behind me, fumble behind and my door flies open and I go out head first and somersault over and I look up from the ground and that fat sausage is lying out the door reaching for me, clenched teeth and dirty words and I hurry back on my elbows and digging in my heels.

And I've got the pistol. I've got the pistol in my bleeding hand and I bring it in front of me, both hands on it and my head raised and I've got it pointed at him and he stops his reaching and pulls back, well his eyes are big and that's satisfying as anything, the fear in his fat face.

Well that moment is over soon enough he pulls back in the car and takes off, door waving and slamming I'm lying there with the gun, not quick thinking since I've been through it, I'm watching and he stops and starts to turn that car, well the bastard plans to run me over.

So I'm on my feet, standing middle of the road, the gun pointed right at him and here he comes and I take aim cause I'm crack with a gun, like I said. I shoot out the window.

He swerves some and the tail of that car lurches to the side and he rights it and I hear his cursing over the engine, then I jump out of the way and he barely misses me, and I get back in the road and take aim and shoot out the back window too, and he hits the brakes and then he speeds up and this way and that for a minute, he hightails it out.

And I stand in the road and look after. Something in me swells, I admit, but I'm no fool.

"You're right Sobe," I say. He had a gun and I took it. It's anyone's guess where it ends.

But I'm right too. He was big, and I got bigger.

And I'm standing here. In this road. With Shaun's money.


	42. Chapter 42

Deep in the Heart of Me 42

I make my way to Uncle John's.

When I finally get there his dogs run out to me, but they know me once they get close enough. And I smell like a mule and other things probably, but still they are all tails wagging.

Uncle John's truck is not here. So Pat is not here. And Shaun's fate is anyone's guess.

I leave before I'm discovered. I tell those dogs to go home and they do.

The pistol is in my good hand. If any more trouble comes for me, I won't be whistling Dixie.

I near home and I pass Cullen Lane in this strange way, moving past my home like a ghost of myself, who I was just this morning when I got up, when I came home from school and did chores has changed I think. I know.

This place is my home where I lay at night listening to the groaning house, the creaking house and the wind rustling my trees. Mine.

Dad says this is our Land of Canaan, our share of the Promised Land that we must fight every day to inherit.

Well I am fighting.

A truck comes along and I stick that pistol in my waist and I catch a ride for that last mile, from a farmer driving all night to take produce to Soulard Market in St. Louis. Well I sit between a crate of turnips and another of sweet potatoes, spared to see the sun rise again. And that can't be far off.

But I imagine that car coming on us, driving fast, with that broken out window and Belly driving it hard and I take out that pistol and point it there and make a sound with my lips. I promise myself I will use it if I must.

But I put it away cause we're entering town, but I keep a turnip in my hand just in case.

It's not the size of the man, it's the weapon in my hand.

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I jump from that bed right at the end of Sobe's short road with only two houses and then a field.

The party is long over looks like, and most of it's cleared, tables empty to be taken down come morning is my guess.

A ghost still hangs from a tree and blows in the wind.

The bonfire is black with ash, the smallest orange glow still alive in the coals.

It's hard to say I missed something with me doing more living than usual in the past few hours, but I have missed something. That's the truth.

I have missed Sobe, in her costume. I have missed her.

Dad once said he doesn't talk about the war because people would think he was making it up. I feel that way about this night.

First thing, Sheriff isn't here. His automobile is nowhere to be found so Sobe might already be at the widow Olmstead's.

I can see no lurkers or folly makers anywhere around here. If she is not at the widow's, she's curled inside. Unless they took her. What if they came and took her? Or they moved. What if she's already gone?

I sit on the stump where we'd set that barrel of cider before and I look up at her window.

If I don't see her in the next three seconds maybe I'll shoot this gun in the air and call her name.

Maybe I will but I know I won't.

So I do a bold thing. I walk to her door and try the handle and it is locked. I think of reaching the porch roof and climbing up there to take a look.

Maman…oh she wouldn't like it a bit, but that don't seem to stop me. Not tonight.

I walk across the bare gound between her house and the widow's. I figure it is nearly deep night, early morning. I have said the sun will rise soon, but not too soon. I get near the widow's and I don't know what to do exactly. If Sobe is in there, she would come to me. I know that.

So I am standing in front and that one's door comes open and there she is, that widow, with wild white hair and a robe over a dressing gown, but that's not it, it's the turkey gun, the rifle I mean pointed at me and her old face looking down the barrel. A witch with a gun on near-Halloween. It's a terrible sight but one thing, she might be able to help Sobe more than I first reckoned.

"It's me Mrs. Olmstead," I say, "Tonio Cullen."

"Get away from here," she says, not at all comforted to know who I am.

"I mean no harm Missus. Just wondering if Sobe is taking shelter in there."

"At three in the morning? Only the devil is about this time of night." She does not lower the gun and I feel mostly admiration right now. Almost a kinship for I have been in her place this very night, well both ends of a gun, and she is a gnarly old brave one.

"I'll be going along then. Is she here?"

"Get," she says moving the rifle to show me my way. "And I'll be speaking to your father on this."

"Yes Ma'am."

"And the sheriff."

I nod. I can hardly ask her to keep it a secret.

"I just…I want to know that she's safe. That's all. I can see the sheriff is called out."

She moves her wings and the rifle is more solidly leveled and she takes a step onto the porch. "So what if he is?"

"Is she safe Missus?" I figure if Sobe is in there she will surely be awakened from this exchange and come running to me.

The rifle falters some. "Is she not at your very house? She left to go there with your sister after this ruckus was over," she nods toward Sobe's house.

"Then she's with my sister," I say. Well damn I should have gone home. Now I am taking off.

"Is she not there?" Widow calls.

"I didn't know," I say over my shoulder and I run off, waiting to be shot in the back, but it doesn't happen and I keep on going.

I know we'll milk soon and I'll be home for it, earlier than Dad will expect. I could hide in the mow. I could sleep maybe. Maybe. And most of the day, but I'd as soon eat with the animals as feel this growing hunger for Mom's good breakfast.

And Sobe. I want to see her.

I have the pistol, and I take it out, carry it in my hand.

Come Monday, I will go back to school. But Tillo and Utz will be there and I don't know how it will be with them. Will they know it was me who shot out the windows in their father's car?

I go by the school, the well house there, and that's where I hide the gun. If trouble ever came to me here, well it's not the size of the problem, it's the gun. And I'll have one now.

So I go home kind of surprised to have met myself this past night. Is this how I will be? I didn't know what all was in me, more, I didn't know how it would come out. I'm not ready to think over the night. Not yet.

A car comes from the direction of town. I am halfway to our lane and I do not attempt to hide. I turn on my heels and I know by the lights even, the shape in the faintest light, it's Sheriff.

I turn back for home, hands deep in my pockets, shoulders hunched forward. Wouldn't do any good to run, and more surprising, I don't want to. This talk was always coming. I just wasn't man enough before.

He pulls alongside and slows to a stop. I am waiting. He gets out.

"Do I need to put these on you?" he says.

I think of sitting on my bitten hand.

"No Sir. Are you taking me to jail?"

He doesn't say.

I shrug. "If you're giving me a choice…."

"The widow told me. You gave her a scare. An old woman."

He steps closer. "What in hell have you been up to?" He sniffs the air. "You smell like hell. A still. And a barn."

I nod. "Working at Uncle John's."

"Get in the car. We'll see what your father has to say about it."

"He won't be up until milking," I say.

"We'll wait. And you'll tell me what you're doing looking for my daughter at three in the morning."


	43. Chapter 43

Deep in the Heart of Me 43

If I speak my mind it could cause Sheriff to take Sobe and move. I don't want him thinking I know their business.

"I was looking for Pat's colt. I got to your house and I saw you were called out and I wanted to know if Sobe was safe," I say as we sit in his car at the end of Cullen Lane.

"Did you see something? Someone suspicious?"

"No."

"You tell me. Anything. You come to me."

He is worrying me. I didn't expect this. I thought he'd be mad.

"If you'd let her come to the farm," I say.

He wipes over his mouth and looks out the window away from me. He's quiet for a long time.

"Sheriff?" I say.

"I don't know how they'll come, when…if."

"Who?"

He looks at me. "You're one with secrets. You know how to hold them, don't you boy?"

"You should talk to my father. Let people know who's after you so they can help."

"Help?" he laughs there.

"More eyes. Ears."

"Mouths," he says.

"Will they come for sure? Is Sobe…is it her?" I won't let them hurt Sobe. I'll kill them all.

He laughs but it's disgust.

"That widow sent your tail running," he says. He finds a smoke then, lights it.

He is looking at me, and I'm tired, but not as tired as he seems.

"Shaun died," he says.

I shake my head. I put my hands against the roof of the car and push. Push to breathe.

"They were loading a colt when it got away. They went looking for it, two drunken fools…maybe three, and Shaun was killed. Someone shot him. It's a night for high-jinx. Pat got him to the hospital in Melville but he was already gone."

All I can do is stare.

"That how you remember it?" he says.

I open the car door.

"Don't run, boy."

"I'll walk." I am pointing out the door. I need to get out.

"I'm on my way to your father."

Maman. Granma. We're barely over the loss of Shaun's wife Peg, that rosy, happy girl and the baby.

I get out then and close the door and I take a few steps and he pulls away and he's watching me some, but I'm coming on. I'm coming on. And the sun is breaking through and streaking the sky but I don't know this world I'm in now.

I don't want to.


	44. Chapter 44

Thank you Robsessed for the FF Friday mention yet again! Oh boyo-boyo-boyo!

Thank you readers and communicators. And by the way, don't underestimate fresh pumpkin.

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Deep in the Heart of Me 44

I want yesterday back.

I'm walking, and I'm wanting it back, and I start to run. I want to go back before…I want to go back. I trip and fall hard on my hands, my knees. I don't care that it hurts. I get sick then and I heave like a dog, on all fours like a dog. I roll over and I'm sitting there. It's hard to breathe.

He was better than me. At most things. He said it was because he was older. "When you're older, you'll be a better man than me," he said. That was after Peg…well I told Sobe that, I'd be better.

I didn't have any right.

The sky is purple and gray and a crow and a wren chasing after.

I'm holding the toes of my boots and I'm crying.

The sun is ready to break. First light and nothing stops. It just keeps going, tucking me in the sameness, cold, it won't wait for us…to catch up. And I am opened like a blade runs from my throat to my belly.

How can the world keep going? How can it just keep going?

Shaun said that, too. When he lost them. He lay on their grave and Dad lifted him off of it. And I stood by with Jasper and Emmett, and they looked at me wide-eyed and scared cause we'd not seen death before.

But now I say it for Shaun. How can the world….

He had plans of his own and he was stupid, a stupid idiot to think he could blow it up like that.

But it was the first time…he shook it off- that sad stupor.

He was a fighter. And then he was a drinker and I feared he would die.

And I thought we could…but it doesn't matter. He died anyway.

"Shaun," I whisper and my face gathers tight.

It brought them out…that dynamite. With their guns. He was reckless. He brought them here.

And I had to stop it. I got in between them.

And it went faster and harder. And he died.

I don't want to cry. I gasp a few times and I get on my feet.

I almost fall again and I catch myself and I see her coming, running in a black dress with wisps of black that float around her hands as she runs to me.

She's the grim reaper, she's not real, she's real, Sobe.

When she gets close I hold my hand out to keep her back. I'm filthy and I stink and it's not fair she should get this on her, me on her. I meant to protect her, I did. Now she'll be sad.

"Your hand!"

I put it down so she can't see.

"I knew," she said. "When you didn't come, I knew."

"Go back to the house Sobe."

She is shaking her head. "I thought it was you. I prayed all night. I knew it was you."

Her eyes are tired and she's pale and beautiful and sad.

It's not me. It's Shaun. I was fine, I mean to say. But I don't say it. Not to her.

She hesitates then she runs for me and slams against me and I wrap my arms around her as tightly as they'll go, as tight as I can and bury my face against her neck and shoulder and more tears come out of me, a deep kind, a new kind, and they are terrible.

But I hold her. And she holds me.

And I'll never let her go. Deep, deep in the heart of me, I'll never let her go.

And on that road, in our lane, with all I know and all I'd die for, it's Sobe Bell that keeps me from getting swept away. Of all of it, it's Sobe Bell that saves me.


	45. Chapter 45

Deep in the Heart of Me 45

The sun is breaking through as she walks with me in her black dress, the costume she kept on. For me.

I hold her, my arm around her neck, and she walks with both arms around my middle.

Oh, I feel. I feel like everything is…fragile. Is that what her father meant…"She's fragile," he said.

And I didn't know.

I touch her arm with my bad hand. It's not Sobe, not just Sobe. He was trying to tell me…it can all go quick. Even if it's precious. It can go.

I feel like I'm being watched. Like Shaun is looking down on me maybe.

"Is he in heaven?" I say cause where do I put him now in my mind.

"Yes," she says. "God takes us up." And I remember. But I didn't know. For Shaun.

The sun is coming up driving the shadows off and the soft green world and the birds…and a breeze with damp in it, with gray clouds and it will all be crying soon.

We near the yard and in that big white house are all the ones. And my brothers and my sisters are on the porch. "There he is," they say and they break apart and the little ones come running, even Jasper and I wait there. I thought…I thought it would be hard to see them. But they come around me, the littlest first and I hug each and they hug me. And Elsie is the last and she says, "What happened Tonio," as if I can tell them and make it all better and I can't.

Emmett stands off crying and looking at me, and Jasper bumps my arm.

I look up at the house and Maman is on the porch holding Pee Wee.

I realize Dad is in the yard with the sheriff.

I don't look at Dad, I keep my eyes on Maman. I walk toward her. She stays still and waits and she's crying and Pee Wee is crying, "What's wrong Tonio?" he says.

And I come to her and my arms around them and she falls on me and someone takes Pee Wee and I hold my mother, I brace my feet and hold her until my father comes and even then she will not let go.

And I grow stronger then.


	46. Chapter 46

Deep in the Heart of Me 46

Pat and Uncle John come along in that truck right after Dad sees Maman into the house. I am not eager for Sobe to hear this. Thankfully she takes Pee Wee inside with the girls. They had not finished their breakfast when the news of Shaun's death came.

"We've lost a son," Dad says.

He would see it that way, but he hasn't lost me. I'm standing right here but he's barely looking at me, and I don't want him to and I do. Maybe I want to fall on him now like Maman fell on me.

I'm angry at Shaun. He didn't have to be so reckless.

I'm mad at him. He was ours and he worked for us and he worked hard when he wasn't too drunk. Well we knew he was in sorrow and he'd come out sometime. We were waiting, that's all. He helped with the milking at least. Nearly always.

So we stand in a circle, Sheriff, Uncle John, Pat, me and Dad.

"We lost the colt. We were drinking," Pat says. He looks over at the dented truck and shakes his head. "Shaun…when wasn't he drinking?" he laughs some but no one does.

"Boyo had a swallow or two," he includes me. "We were just having fun, shooting the bullshit. We couldn't catch that colt. Most the time we weren't trying. Just having a good time. Shaun has…had more stories…. This one," me again, "got to missing…his party."

Oh God no don't just throw in Sobe like that when I ain't spoken to Sheriff.

"…he wanted to see a pumpkin or something. I think those two sips he had made him want his mama, that's what I think," Pat says and I can't look at Dad. I watch Pat like I can figure the next word that pops out of his mouth. This is no time to joke. It makes it sound like he's lying.

"We get there on the road and I think I see that colt and I remember swerving off the road but I don't know why or how. I came to and I've run into a tree and all I know I get out and Shaun is lying beside the truck and at first I don't know, but I try to get him up and he's shot," Pat says.

"How'd he get shot? When?" Dad says.

"He was in the back, standing up, looking along the road and he never said a word. I don't know if he was shot there or once he got out."

"You never heard a shot?" Dad says.

Pat shakes his head.

"Who would have shot him? Who would have been around?" Sheriff says. "Was he in trouble? He just had that trouble. Was someone after him?"

I look at Sheriff. Most of us don't have, 'someone after us.' But Shaun did and if they shot him…it's the chance he took. And I took.

"So I get him in the truck," Pat says, "and I go first to the doc and he gets in back with Shaun and we get him to the hospital."

The question is, did Pat shoot Shaun? Did they argue?

He insists he didn't even have his rifle that night. And I back him.

Did I come back on Shaun and accidentally shoot him? Was I angry they left without me?

"No!" I insist. Of course I believe what I'm saying because it's true. And Pat backs me.

So we had no guns?

"No," Pat says firmly.

I shake my head and look at Dad. He watches me so closely.

Sheriff asks Pat to take him to the scene of the accident. I don't have to go along since I wasn't anywhere around.

As they drive from the yard Dad puts his arm around my neck and it's heavy there.

"What happened?" Dad says to me.

"I…the colt got away. They went to look…in Uncle John's truck. I ah…I left on foot."

"On foot?"

"They were a…I didn't want to go. To Springfield. I wanted to see…," I shoot a quick look at Sheriff. He's looking the truck over with Pat and Uncle John.

"All these hours…?" Dad says.

"We…got a late start," I say. "I didn't shoot Shaun."

"No one is saying that," Dad says. "Pat says they were drinking. He saw the colt and left the road and…it's the stupidest thing I ever heard and it's the stupidest thing ever done."

"I didn't want to go with them," I repeat, not able to look at Dad for the lie and remembering how Pat threw me out. And Shaun's blood. I look down and it's on the leg of my pants.

"You're a sight," Dad says, and I feel it in him, the deep sorrow the loss has brought.

I hold up my finger. "I guess I shouldn't drink," I say.

"Well what possessed you then?" Dad says. "I am glad you had the sense not to go with them. It could have been you…." He doesn't finish.

It could have been me. I hear afresh the shots whizzing over my head just hours ago.

"It's not me," I say firmly.

"Well it's bad enough," he says. "I'm not going to say what could have been different. It's done now. We have to carry on. And we will. But I hope you've learned."

11111

We bury Shaun the next day after church and folks gather round and we lay him in the cemetery next to Peg and the baby.

I work a rope with Pat, Mike and Uncle John work the other and we lower the box and I don't look at Pat but keep my eyes on the coffin and make sure it holds level.

"Oh death where is thy sting?" Preacher says. "Oh grave where is thy victory?"

And Maman and Elsie and the gaggle cry.

My hand stings as the rope runs past the edges where Jack Bastard took a nip and I've left blood along its length.

And after, I am patted and given condolence as if I'd birthed Shaun myself. And I notice the earth is not leveled over Peg's grave and I wonder that Shaun had not done it. And my eyes scan those trees beyond and I swear to heaven I see it in the trees.

That colt.

We eat the food and I answer it over and over. What happened? Country folk are not afraid to ask such. We are known for being point blank.

So I tell it, and each time it gets more solid, more real. They were looking for the colt and Pat went off the road and hit a tree and Shaun was lying beside the truck and he'd been shot.

No, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. Wasn't. I say it. And I say it. And no, I don't think it was someone from the camp, the CCC, and I don't know, I don't know. I don't know.

And I take that bloody rope and while they eat and visit I go off by myself, and Sobe watches me but doesn't follow. It seems Pee Wee is hers now.

So I go toward those trees and I need it, a sign that Shaun is happy with Peg and the baby, a sign he forgives us for letting him die. And I stand nearby and I whistle softly and I hold that rope and I wait and I see a shape and I see it more clearly and it gets to the edge and I wait.

And it noses its way forward and steps lightly and stops and I wait and it takes another step and I hear them back at the church and they quiet cause they see.

And the colt takes a step, and a step, and I wait and it reaches me and I carefully loop the rope around its neck.

It is over its fright with the truck and the mule. It wants to go home and see its mother.

And I lead it then, walk toward them at the church and a couple of the children run out and their parents call them back and I keep leading it gentle toward them and Maman is up and standing by Dad, her hands over her mouth.

And Pat comes forward, his hands on his hips.

I lead the colt to him, this same colt that never gave us any trouble, but sounded in the story we've told like he is the devil himself.

"Well I'll be damned," Pat says.

"Maybe not," I say. Maybe not.

1111

Our story holds for two weeks after.

And then…all hell.


	47. Chapter 47

Thank you Robsessed for mentioning this story. Thank you.

To all you readers, I love you. Now roast a pumpkin.

Deep in the Heart of Me 47

When Peg and the baby died, we had Shaun to comfort and I guess it made us comfort ourselves. But after Shaun, I could see life on the other side, ahead of me, but it's like a chunk got blown out of the road and I wasn't sure I could make the leap and I didn't know where to look for a bridge.

The first change came on Sunday. After the burial Sobe and I had been near one another but I did not find myself the best company, I wanted to take the colt to Uncle John's more than anything and I did that. I led it home and the walk helped me some.

But a quietness settled inside of me and I had no desire to talk, to hear the interruption of my own words.

I tried to let nature console me, but the red and gold leaves were a beautiful and sorrowful testament to endings and beginnings, and that normally inspired me, but now it just confirmed my difficulties—Shaun was dead and I had to keep living.

I took to singing some, mostly hymns. I could stand that. And then I couldn't.

When I turned the colt into the paddock and I watched it run toward its mother I knew I was letting him go. That mattered in me, but still, the grief.

Once I got home it was also unusually quiet. Shaun was like me, he liked to occupy the mow to do his thinking in those rare Sabbath times when the work stopped and we were permitted to be idle. So Shaun and I met there without planning to I guess and we took turns looking out and falling back in the hay and talking about nearly everything, even girls sometimes.

Shaun was too sad to talk about it much but sometimes he would, what it was like to be with a woman.

He told me to wait for love and if I put my willy in then a baby just might come out. Well I knew that. I live on a farm not under a rock. And we do have the herd and gaggle and I've always known a dad gets with a mom and here they come after by one's or even two's.

But Shaun says in Springfield they got a place where loose women sell it. And I should never go because you can get a disease on your thing and it could fall off even. He was laughing when he said that but I ain't been able to get it out of my mind—the women selling it or my willy rolling down the leg of my britches and ending up under my shoe.

He said don't do it with no local gal cause you can end up a daddy and have to marry her or the whole community will hate you and you'll see that bastard child everywhere so don't do that. And if she has a daddy or a brother mean enough you're not going to live anyway.

My father wouldn't allow a bastard child. He would tell me to do my duty and I'd do it.

But I want to marry. I look forward to it now that I know Sobe. It doesn't prickle me at all to think of being with her for the rest of my life.

So I don't go to the mow, I take my rifle and walk in the woods, but I don't shoot at anything.

I find myself going to the old homestead where I took Sobe for a drink and my mind starts to turn then, turn to her.

An ache comes on me for her. She is my bridge. I know that.

But I don't go to school come Monday. I have never felt so tired.

I do not go on Tuesday either. I can't sit in the same room with Tillo or Utz. I want to blame them for everything and I know it's wrong, I do, but given the chance I figure there is no telling what I will do.

Well that's the reason I give to myself.

Sobe comes on Wednesday, after school, walking home with the girls. I can't believe the excitement in my dead heart when I come out of the barn and there she is holding Pee Wee.

She doesn't play games the way I know girls can cause they have played them on me when I wasn't even trying to be a part of it, trying to get me to notice them, then getting mad when I didn't and I am just trying to live, that's all.

But Sobe does not look away nor does she approach me. She's holding Pee-Wee and talking to Elsie while that one takes in the washing which is never left up this late in the day, but Maman has been resting each day after dinner. We are all at half-mast I would say.

Sobe knows I want her here. With me. She knows this. She has told me she won't leave her dad. More and more I think of what to do. If I can prove I'm ready to take care of her, then maybe I can go to her father and ask.

So I've no time to waste in school. That's what I'm thinking right now.

I finish my work and when I go into supper she is helping set the table and she smiles at me.

I am sober, but she softens something in me. Well there is always the relief she brings to my heart.

Pretty? I could admire her for hours. She moves like a wisp, she is graceful even though she thinks she isn't. Her hair is thick and dark. I picture it covering my hands. Her figure is perfect. She is small but round. Her skin is pale and freckled some and I love her face. Her beauty, her eyes. Her lips even. Her little ears. She makes me happy just to see her.

She is full of words I want to hear and thoughts I want to know and sort through and think about. She makes me nervous and peaceful. I can't say it right.

Her hands are smaller than mine but they are strong and when she touches me she fast-starts my heart to flipping about and even now as she moves around I am so aware of her and I feel tied to her and pulled this way, that way, like a cord runs between us.

She is holding a cake. She tells me it's my birthday and I didn't remember.

They all sing and I don't really hear them, it's my own thoughts that are loudest.

We are trying to be happy.

I am fourteen.


	48. Chapter 48

Deep in the Heart of Me 48

I'm waiting in the barn for Sobe. I've invited her, when dishes are done cause she always does them no matter that Maman tells her not to, but after that I've asked her to come with me up to the mow. And don't tell the gaggle. And no Pee Wee can't come.

I've already taken care of the herd. They've got homework to do and Dad is playing the radio. Good thing.

Sobe has been staying for three nights at our house. I find comfort knowing she is here. She tells me it's like being at girls' camp. She went to one a couple of times growing up. Girls piled in to small spaces, and she finds living with my sisters like that.

They share a big room but there are so many of them they are cramped together. Elsie hangs a curtain in front of her bed in the nook with the window. So of course they all wanted curtains and Maman said no, not until they are nearly twelve like my sister.

Well they thought that was very unfair, but Maman doesn't worry about what they find fair.

They are ridiculous, those girls, but Sobe, not ridiculous at all, fits perfectly.

I look at my hand. The wound is bound, she saw to that. I squeeze my fingers and thumb and fan them wide as I can but it's her hand there I'm thinking of. I like the feel of it, like she ties me…she ties me to everything new.

She is the only one I can speak to. No one else. I speak to her and I can almost bear my voice.

But mostly I listen.

Finally the door opens quickly and closes again and it's her, her dress blowing about her legs as she runs across the yard.

I wait with my hands at my waist. I stand back and she comes to me.

"Hello," she says and when she smiles…dimples.

She charms me. She makes me happy. I get near her and I think it will be all right. All of it.

I take her hand.

She makes me climb the ladder first because of her dress. "I won't look," I say, but she doesn't believe me and that's embarrassing.

So I go first and I look back to check and she's coming. I get up first and turn to help her, not that she needs it, but she gives me her hands and finishes the climb and I am sitting on the floor and she sits there between my spread legs and she is looking at me.

"Your mother…."

I don't want to hear about Mom right this minute.

…she will wonder where I am."

"You're with me," I say.

"They think I've gone to the outhouse. I didn't say."

"Come on," I say and she gets up and I do.

We've the wren suddenly flapping and Sobe yelps a little and it flies out the door. I am quiet and she says, "What's the matter?"

And I tell her what Shaun said about the wren taking souls to heaven.

"Oh you'll get me crying again," she says and there's been too much of that around here.

"Softest place to take a nap," I say going to the hay and lying down. I admit I want her with me here. I've thought about it.

"Are there mice?" She is standing there going up and down on her toes.

I laugh. "Not with all the cats around here." Well there aren't too many.

She sways side to side a little like she's thinking about it, then she walks to me. "Will it make my legs itch?"

"Come here," I hold the bandaged hand toward her and she touches my fingers and lies down beside me keeping her dress around her knees.

We lay side by side and she smiles at me and I don't have a smile but inside I do and I'm looking at her and she's beautiful. It grows dusky and I could sleep here with her. I want to kiss her.

But I don't. I look overhead and the wren flies in then lands in its nest.

"It's nice here Tonio."

"Still miss the city?"

"Not as much."

"I used to come here with Shaun," I say.

She fumbles for my hand and I take hers. I end up pulling it to my lips and I kiss the back of it. She is watching me with such a smile.

She moves toward me then and kisses my cheek. Now I do smile at her.

"You have whiskers," she says.

Well I have a few. I'm surprised she feels them and I check with my good hand and they are showing up a bit. I can't believe she kissed me.

"I'll shave tomorrow," I say. I'm a little proud of everything—her lying with me, the affection, and my beard. We're older now. I am.

So we're back and forth with nothing much and I end up saying, "I can't believe he's gone."

"I know. Tonio…I understand, I do."

"Your mother?" I kiss her hand again.

"Tonio…I saw my mother killed."

I raise my head. If I saw Maman hurt in anyway…but killed?

"You can't tell Tonio," she says so distressed. "You can't let anyone know."

I wouldn't. I don't have to say it.

"I saw her killed," she whispers, then she turns her body toward me. "I saw it."

I take Sobe in my arms. When we are close, when we are facing one another, it makes a place to hold what she's said.

"My mama," she whispers.

I pull her in tighter and we smash those words between us.

"Tonio," she says so softly, "I won't let them take me. I won't ever go with someone again. They'll have to kill me where they find me. That's how hard I'll fight."

I stroke her hair and I feel her strength and her smallness. I kiss the top of her head. With me she is bigger. I am bigger.

"Who are they?" I say. I've asked before.

She picks at the button on the strap to my overalls.

"Dad was warden. Of three prisons. Three of the worst. That's how I grew up…at the last one. I went to school, well everywhere with a detective.

"When they took us, they killed him—the detective. I saw that too. But…we can't trust anyone." She buries her face against me and I hold her.

I'm still, barely breathing. I wait.

"Did…they hurt you?" I say. It is careful. I want to be mad but I have to hear.

"They pushed and shoved and slapped and tied us up and didn't let us…do what we needed. We were thirsty and hungry and they kept it dark. They…touched her in rude ways. They made fun of us. Of me. She…went away. In her mind. She went away and I was…."

I feel like I'll break apart. We were twelve then. This would have been then.

"How long?"

"A month," she says. "They shot her and she didn't even…."

"I will never let you be hurt," I repeat.

"They held the gun on me…after her. The one with the gun…he wanted to kill me. But the other one…he said no. Sometimes…he tried to be…nice."

He wasn't nice. Does she know that?

"Where are they?"

"They got away. I don't even know who they were."

"Your dad-does he know?"

"They were hired by someone inside. That's what Dad thinks. One of the suspects has died. He doesn't know for sure. There were so many threats on Dad's life. I don't know if I got used to it. I don't think that's it. But Mom…she never did. She stayed drunk. I tried not to be afraid."

I thunk my head in the hay and I groan.

"I shouldn't have told you," she says, her hand coming onto my face, her fingers grating against my whiskers. We're not being careful now. She pushes me back and lays half on top of me and I move my hands over her.

I am discovering her, not just her form but who she really is and both capture me. We are quiet as I touch her. She allows it, and her breathing picks up and I know mine does, my heart….

I end up hugging her to me. I don't want to violate her in anyway but she has me, all I am.

"Tonio you make me think I could be normal. If we could stay here, in one place, maybe it is over. Maybe I can just be a girl like Elsie. And my dad could be near and…."

It's a few seconds before I realize she's crying.

"Your dad can move on," I say, trying to give some possibilities. "He can get away enough he can't bring harm to you," I say.

"My dad?" she says.

It is the wrong thing to say. After days of silence, I let my big mouth get away again.

He let her live in danger and he didn't keep her safe. He could draw them still…bad men she said…if they are looking. We get rid of him, there's no danger to Sobe this farm couldn't cover.

"Remember, if he thinks I've told we'll go and you'll never find us Tonio."

"Well I don't believe that. You could always find me. I'm not going anywhere. There would never be a reason for us to stay apart," I say. "He can go if he wants. You could come to me. We'd watch over you here."

She is shaking her head.

"Do you love me?" I say trying not to show how angry I am.

"Yes," she says with so much feeling something answers in me that makes me feel crazy. "But Dad needs me. He's all alone. I could never…you didn't see him after I came home. Remember what I said Tonio, you can't fix it."

I dig in my pocket and I find it and bring it out. That blood-stained hankie, washed and folded. Stained brown, but clean.

"Remember this?" I say.

"My handkerchief."

"I keep it under my pillow. That's how I feel…about you. If you married me your name would change and he could go and they wouldn't find you."

She scrambles away from me. She sits up and looks at me. There is straw in her hair. "My name has changed. Twice," she says.

"Well we'll do it for real then," I say sitting up. "No one would find you here. If you'd just say yes."

I've got that fifty dollars. Dad wouldn't let me contribute to the coffin for Shaun. He probably thought I had a nickel. But I can buy a ring and take her to St. Louis for a high-old-time of elopement if she'll have me.

I'm scared to death she won't, and I'm scared to death she will. But I say, "Marry me Sobe."


	49. Chapter 49

Deep in the Heart of Me 49

"We're too young," Sobe says. "We're not even eighteen! Or sixteen even! You haven't even known me that long Tonio."

"Long enough."

"A month!"

"I won't change my mind," I insist. "Dad says…," well Shaun said it too, but I don't add Shaun's name, "when you find the girl…thee girl…you should marry her. Dad knew with Maman and Shaun knew with Peg," so there I said it, "and…maybe I know something too."

She puts her hands over her mouth for a minute, her eyes so dark and deep I could fall headfirst maybe, I don't know. I move close and pull her hands away. I hold one. She says, "But the girl…should be…she should be finished with school at least…right?"

"You can finish school," I say generously. Does she think marriage would end her life?

"She should also know, she should know you're 'thee boy'…and be ready…for marriage…for life!"

Now we do have a problem. "I'm not 'thee' boy?" I thought I was.

"I…think you are…."

"You 'think' I am?"

"I wasn't thinking about…husband. I was thinking…just thinking you were…my friend."

"Special friend," I remind her with disgust.

"You're twisting it. Like in the debate you're trying to be the best. I don't get to plan…just one day at a time, Dad says. Because anything can change. How can I plan such a thing as marriage?"

"I'm trying to keep you safe from gangsters and kidnappers," I say. "That's all."

She puts her hand on me. We're sitting up half in the hay and half out. I don't know how we moved so much but she makes me crazy.

"But…that's not a proposal Tonio! Even I know that."

"Because of…love," I say, worn out already. "Why else?"

She takes in a breath and I think she's going to cry. "If I didn't think so much of you Tonio, do you think I would have risked telling you about my father and me?"

"I guess not. No. No I don't."

"Then it's love from me too. I love you Tonio."

She pulls me to earth. She rips me off my high horse and she stays put and looks at me and bests me and wins me all in one.

"We have enough trouble without being mean to one another," she says.

Yes. Yes we do. But I wasn't being mean at all, but I know it's best to go along.

"All right," I say. I am giving over. I hope she understands I don't want to give over but I do it because I am trying to…be 'thee boyo' I guess.

Then I wonder, "Would you rather be taken by those outlaws again before you'll marry me?" Maybe I want to be a sorehead.

"It's not like that," she says. "I would rather get to be a normal person and finish school and reach a marriageable age and not be the girl who married before she was even…well before she was a woman just because she was afraid."

"Sobe…you just confused me again. I thought we agreed that it's love. Is it or not?"

"It is. But this is so quick, Tonio. It's just…when it happened, I was a freak. I was the girl who was taken. Even before, I was the girl who had a detective follow her around. I couldn't go anywhere without the strangeness of a big man waiting in the foyer or on the porch. I've had this shadow on me. I don't want you to just feel sorry for me, you're…meant to do great things. If there's to be any hope for us it won't come out of you…protecting me like I'm something so…weak."

"Fragile," I say. I don't mean to, it just slips out.

"What?"

"Nothing. You get me mixed up."

"Fragile?"

"I didn't mean it. I meant gentle. You're gentle."

"Well I've no idea but you don't even know if you'll stay on the farm."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I don't know…if it can hold you, Tonio. The world is so big, and there might come a day when…maybe something will change…and what you thought…it's different then. You didn't know…or maybe want it even. You don't know Tonio is all I mean."

"Sobe I…."

"And…I love you because you are so wonderful and brave. But…you have to let me decide on things Tonio because they are things about what I must do and…."

I am shaking my head. She is a tornado of ideas and she makes my head spin.

"Just a 'no' will do then," I say and I get up and I'm hitting the dust off my pants.

She stands as well rubbing one leg against the other as they must be itching. "It's not fair if you're angry," she says.

"I'm not," I say spanking my own behind as the dust flies.

"Well then I shall go on loving you," she says lifting that small pointy chin.

"And what shall I do, Sobe? You don't seem inclined to help me out so I'll be the new detective then and I'll follow you around and you can ignore me."

"The only thing I've done to break our code is tell you what you've wanted to know from the first," she says. "I did that for you because…I trust you. Do you know what that means? I don't trust anyone Tonio. Not ever or never even!"

"Well you know what I want. I won't be saying it again."

"Oh?" she says and I am hopeful as she sounds disappointed.

"Did you think I would? After…this?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Cullen Tonio? Would we go to school like that?"

"Don't make fun," I warn.

"I'm not! I'm saying what it would really be! Even the teacher is not married and she is thirty-two!"

"Then she's an old maid. She wasn't taken and nearly killed. She didn't watch her mother die, now did she? She doesn't have to run away, and keep running. I don't know why, but your father knows. And he won't take me serious if I ask for you any other way, don't you understand?"

"Oh Tonio," she says, "you've thought so hard on this." Her hands touch my face. I fight not to close my eyes. I'm hurting. Inside I'm hurting. I didn't keep Shaun alive, but I won't fail her. Does she know that. If Sobe Bell can be hurt in this world while I live, while I breathe, then I can't live. I can't live if such a thing is true.

But I can't say it. I wouldn't have the words to say out loud to release like birds these words, birds that would die without the cage…without me to hold them…to clip their wings while I figure it out…all of it…some of it…none of it…nothing.

"Tonio…if I thought you loved me so much…."

"I do."

She shakes her head. "So much?"

"I won't keep saying it so you can throw me off again."

"But…my dad would say…yours would say…and your mother…."

"We could go to St. Louis and get married. Then no one could take you from me Sobe. You could be normal then.

"I've got fifty dollars. We could hitch there come Saturday…we could leave while it's still dark on one of the trucks that come through to go to market and cross the river and stay in a boarding house even." But I have a better plan than that. I'm just showing her the possibilities.

"Fifty dollars? Are you rich or something?"

I feel proud of that. She is coming my way I think.

"But I can't run off. He'd die. He'd think all kinds of things. I can't run off."

"We'll leave a note so he won't worry. But we have to get a head start on him. But once we do it…get married, you belong with me…not him."

She is staring at me, forgetting to close her mouth, her tongue so pink. "You would do this," she whispers.

I make a sound, like a wit's end sound that just comes out.

"I would do…anything," I say.

"And he can…he can visit?"

"All he wants," I say. But I wish he'd go away, him and his problems.

More staring. "Do you…do you reach under your pillow and…touch my…handkerchief…at night?" she continues.

I see myself doing that. I do it all the time. I hold it against my lips. But I'm not telling her any of it.

"Do you…Tonio?"

I swallow. "Yes." I clear my throat.

"I will think about it then. I will Tonio."

She smiles at me.

I keep my smile inside. It's there. But I'm not ready to give it until she's certain.

I look solidly at her. I am sure about this. About me. I hold what I must, I do what I must. I'm fourteen and I'm a man. She doesn't realize. She doesn't see me yet. Not all of me. But then I don't show it. A man doesn't show what would hurt, or worry, or frighten. He moves it around so the woman can feel safe. Can be safe. Her father does that. You can bet on it. She doesn't know half is my guess. Someone is still looking for them.

And my own Dad doesn't share every worry with Mom. He is careful what he says and does. I've seen that. And I will be careful with Sobe. She is right about her father. He will take this badly. I could go to him, sure, and get laughed out of the room while he packs them up and moves them off knowing she's told me. But married. He can't break that. Marriage is until the grave.

And my dad, I won't worry it. He told me about 'thee one.' And Maman, that hurts some. Granma. But they will accept it in time. Sobe will be a daughter and they already love her. She is nothing but gain for us.

"We will leave Friday night…if you say yes," I say.

She is looking at me like finally, finally she knows. There is no stopping me.


	50. Chapter 50

Deep in the Heart of Me 50

On Thursday I hurry through milking. Tonight, after the work, I shall go into town and see Sobe and I'm thinking of that and how she went back to her father yesterday. I think it's guilt because of what she's agreeing to, the trip to St. Louis.

But my dad looks at me. "Let's get the rifles and go walking," he says.

That means hunting. That means long silent times and him waiting for me to say what's on my mind. But I don't want that. And he won't ask, he'll wait for me to open up. I don't want to open up.

So we get the guns and we are walking and our boots cover ground same distance and time, same crunch on the ground and I think of how I used to walk wide and quick to keep up but not now. I can go wider than him and that's a fact.

Barrels pointed to the ground and shadows stretched long on the choppy earth and the same silence in us, but different words building.

Stubborn? It is the cloth we're cut from. I didn't know it was in me, I didn't know what it was.

He shoots the pheasant and we don't have a dog, not since he had to put down Sally and I go for the bird and he is with me and it is a beauty and he holds it in his hands and we look at how fine the breast is and he puts it in the basket that hangs at his side.

We walk some more and I shoot next and I bring down my bird. We are the same and we are not the same. I find my bird, tossed in the weeds like an old lady's hat. The feathers are fine and I'll save them for Sobe.

I hang it from my belt by its feet.

So we walk some more and cover ground and he points here and there and I look where he says and see it like he does and the love for it is in me, like him.

We get far as Shaun's old house. It sits there with the front door flapping. It will attract vagrants is all. We go there and Dad enters slow with me behind. He walks through and that just means he looks in the bedroom cause there's nothing else not open to itself. I can stand in one place and see it all.

I have known it needs righted and cleared and locked up and I have not been inclined to face it. But neither has Dad though he's spoken of it to Mom.

I give Dad my bird and tell him I'll be along. I want to put it to rights here. I can do it now. Just now. Maybe not later. Or ever.

There is a lamp to light and I do that. It's dark in here, even with the door open and the front windows.

But Dad sits at the table there.

He just looks at everything. I know his knees hurt and maybe his back. One day it appeared he did not move extra without resting.

I lay a blanket on the floor and look for what to keep to send to Arkansas maybe.

There is the picture taken on their wedding day. I lay it careful. But it is a mess in here. There is not much. His clothes. Peg's are long gone, burned with the baby's things. Shaun, drunk, bonfire. He was a bugger sometimes. Ornery like I said.

He doesn't have much. Buried him in the good suit he got married in. I put his coat on the floor and I throw his clothes on top of it. I take these out and I empty one of Shaun's nearly empty bottles over the goods and strike a match and land it there and it burns and flames get going and Dad comes to the door and watches.

I move around him and I gather whatever will burn. Last I drag out the tick from the bed, where Peg and the baby died. It nearly snuffs the fire but the flames fight back and lick and spit and grow and then it burns so bright until it consumes the mattress and whatever else I find to feed it with.

He has a bible. I put this in the blanket. But almost everything else that can burn…does.

"Feel better?" Dad finally says as we are walking toward the house. I carry the pack of Shaun's things on my back. I carry his rifle.

I don't feel better, but it had to be done and I did it. Dad didn't have to help. But his being with me gave me the spine.

The house is empty now. The house is ready.

"So, this Sobe…," Dad says.

I look at him. "She's the one," I say.

"The one?"

"Like you said with Maman."

He pulls a face.

We walk some more.

"If you were sixteen," he says. "Seventeen better."

"There won't be another," I say.

And we do not say more after that. Not until we are at the house.

"We'll butcher next week," he says.

And I will be married.


	51. Chapter 51

Thanks to the girls at Robsessed for once again mentioning this story on Fanfiction Fridays. Very honored.

Thanks readers and reviewers. Happy Halloween.

Deep in the Heart of Me 51

Jasper has been hanging close and staring at me every chance he gets. He reads things but he doesn't know what he's seeing. He gets a feeling on me sometimes, like he smells trouble.

So Friday night I have to tell him something. I don't want the folks to worry when I don't show come Saturday morning. So I tell him not to allow it. I have a note wrapped in another paper so he doesn't get in trouble for holding it. In that note I say I shall return on Sunday with a big, wonderful surprise.

"Don't read it ahead," I say.

Then I dig in my pocket and take out some of my stash and I get two dollars and hand him that and shove the rest back in my pocket.

His eyes are big, his brows high up, so high in that curly hair he's got, I can't even see them. He hoes a half acre in town in the hot sun most of the summer for some old lady for twenty-five cents. So that's how it is.

"What's this for?" he says like he's holding communion.

I shrug. It's not out of my fifty. It's my life savings, which goes barely up and way down most of the time cause Dad thinks if I get cash money I should buy a cow or a pig or a colt, so I usually do that, but I'm giving Jasper my entire life savings before I got the fifty off of Otto. Two dollars.

"Thanks," he says like I'm Santa Claus. "But…you rob a bank or something?"

He watches as I add my pack to the cart with the two full cans. "Don't you worry about it," I say.

"You running away?" he says meaning my stuff.

"No. It's none of your business, that's all," I answer.

"Like what happened at Otto's game?"

He wants to stop me in my tracks that about does it.

"What you know about that?" I say.

"It goes round like you know all about it," he says putting that money in the pocket of his britches.

"They say that at school?"

"Tillo says it. He says it was you blew up Otto's outhouse and Belly says he's coming for you."

It's important I don't show fear. Well I am only briefly afraid. I have the pistol. I need to keep it near apparently.

I look around to make sure Dad is nowhere around. "First off Tillo Smith is an ass-sniffin' liar and second, he tried to kill me," I say.

"Tillo?" he asks with excitement.

"Belly," I say without patience.

"He's a full grown man! They say he's killed many. He used to be part of Beak Nose Benny's nefarious Kentucky gang," my brother says, big words, big eyes. "You better tell Dad. I'll bet he's the one killed Shaun. I'll bet he's got a rifle trained on you soon as you step out of this barn!"

I blow through my lips. I've no desire to hear more of this. I'm the one talking here. "Quiet down."

I have not been able to brag a whit about besting Belly. Well losing Shaun cooled me. But it rises in me, the desire to crow some. "I took his gun. I held it on him and he showed so much fear I thought he'd piss himself."

I was glad I had not pissed myself. Maybe I did have mettle.

"You held a gun on Belly?"

"His own gun," I say.

Should I tell the rest? Well some it for sure. So I do tell a little about being in Otto's car.

"He took off in that automobile and I stood in the road and he came my way I shot out the front window and he went passed and I shot out the back."

Jasper stares at me. I do not smile or anything. It's like I'm telling this to myself as well. I have not given it a minute's deliberation. I might be amazing or just dumb lucky. I can't tell.

"Holy smokes," he finally says. "You lyin'?"

I laugh a little. "I am not."

"Well he will kill you for sure." Some of his admiration seems to be worry. Is he hearing me?

I got Belly's gun! I shot out Otto's windows and I haven't even told him the part about Jack Bastard the most glorious mule that ever lived. I haven't told him how I took that mule for a good long ride and I got shot at to-boot.

"That Belly don't worry me," I say. Then I spit.

I can hear him breathing. And this barn is not quiet.

"Did he shoot Shaun?" he says.

Well it's more than likely. Hard to say though.

"Not intentional. Well I don't know. I mean it was intentional, but not…Shaun might have…."

"Deserved it?" he finishes.

"No!" I say. But…yes. That's exactly what can happen to a man when he trespasses, blows up property and steals livestock. No one cries for you but your mama and the homefolks and your sweetheart maybe. If you've got one.

But Peg…she's in the land of no more tears so Shaun didn't even have that.

"You better tell Dad," he says again.

"I won't ever tell Dad," I say with so much feeling he gulps. "And you won't either boyo."

He shakes his head. I hope it's not too much for him to keep ahold of.

"What you up to tonight? You going back there to take revenge?" he says.

Who does he think I am? Clyde Barrow?

"No," I say. "Get it out of your mind."

He stays put and I feel how much he wants it to be different.

He'll understand someday. That business aside, what I'm doing with Sobe will bring us all happiness, the most we've known since Shaun and Peg came.

"Well I'm getting my rifle and keeping it close. That why you didn't go to school all week?" he says. He's smarter than anyone I know. Always could figure things out especially when it came to me. Frankly I've been jealous of him now and then. But now he just seems like a little kid and he always means me well. He's better than me, that's for sure, well he's kinder for a fact.

"What you gonna do, shoot off your big toe? There's nothing to fear I tell you. He comes for me he'll get his own pistol up his nose," I say. I don't think he's coming. Tillo is so full of shit it comes out his mouth, that's all.

But he probably is coming. It's possible is what I mean.

111111111

Later on I try to eat dinner but my stomach is flipping around. It's dark outside and it's nearly time for Pat to be waiting end of Cullen Lane. I'm thinking of that, but I look around the table at them, the gaggle chattering about the timeline they are memorizing, Emmett stuffing himself while he listens to Elsie carry on, Jasper watching me like I'm about to get raptured.

Granma sips her soup and tucks Pee-Wee's bib more tightly around his neck. Dad tells Emmett to slow down.

I am looking at each and they are changing before my eyes.

I love them. I didn't know before. I wondered that I couldn't feel it sometimes, just this frustration at the noise they bring, but I want it now. Want them.

They're my family. Dad tells me its valuable and I know, I do. But times like this, I really do.

I don't know why I hold myself from them but if I don't they take over. It seems…they take over.

I work for them. They have each other for what's soft. But they have me too.

"You're not eating, Tonio," Maman says.

Granma watches me. She says to Maman that I am handsome. She's speaking Italian but she says it enough I know. Mom smiles at me like I had something to do with it.

"I…am," I say. I don't mean handsome I mean 'hungry,' like, 'I'm pretending to be hungry.' I'm answering Maman. We do not say we aren't hungry. She goes for the castor oil then and she feels your forehead and looks you over like you're Pee-Wee.

I take a bite of my potatoes.

Then I take another. I eat everything. I wipe my mouth and I stand.

They are all looking at me like I'm about to sing.

"I be excused?" I say.

Dad looks at Maman then he says to me, "Go on."

"I'm…I'll be back for milking," I say to Dad. I do not say which milking.

"Out all night?" Dad says, and they wait.

"With Pat," I say. I keep looking.

"No drinking," he says.

He's never said that before. He's never had to. Does he still trust me?

"No sir," I say.

He thinks it's dogs. We'll run Pat's dogs. He thinks it might be good for me. After Shaun, the house. I hold his gaze, I do not blink.

"Go on," he says again.

I do not look at Maman, but Jasper, I don't know why I wish I could tell him all of it of a sudden. Well I'm marrying Sobe.

"Haircuts tomorrow," Maman says. But she's looking at me. "You be careful."

I nearly smile. Then I round the table and go to Maman and she lifts her cheek to me and I kiss her there. I feel a stab of something so I turn to my Granma and kiss her and she pats my cheek and I say, "Goodnight Nonna."

Jasper is holding his fork but he's looking at me and I nod at him. See I don't hardly do that anymore so it might sound small, the nodding, but it's me seeing him for once.

I go out then.

I walk our lane in the dark and I look back a couple of times. I am so choked and what I'm doing is in no way against them. We shall be home by Sunday and then they will see my plan was nothing but good for us. And I will have Sobe and it will be forever.

I feel myself grow another foot as I walk, and I'm already tall. I lift my cap and smooth back my hair and pull that cap on low.

She is waiting for me.

He is sheriffing tonight and she has said she has been staying home and not going to the widow's. She will spread her books on the table and set the lamp there and he will kiss her the way I did Maman and all the while her bundle will wait under the stairs and she will be tapping her foot and thinking of me.

Pat is not there, and I'm too antsy to wait. I grab my pack from under the stand and put the strap over my shoulder and I start to walk toward town. Surely he'll figure it out since that's where I'm going.

I don't want to be seen, but automobiles along the road don't come so often. But it is Friday night though it's hardly got going.

I will not fear Belly. Pat said it would get out like everything does around here. Well you can't blow something up and not have it get around. There were plenty there went running when Shaun set off that stick.

I've kept my mouth shut about how Shaun got shot. I've kept the sheriff from poking around Otto's game. That's what that money was and I kept my end.

I touch my pocket to make sure the money is still there.

I won that gun fair too. He stuck it on me it was up for grabbing.

But Dad says you never know how someone will look at a thing. They might not see it like you do.

Shaun dying, that made it go quiet.

I want to leave it for a while. All of it. I want to leave it behind and cross the river, with Sobe.

Finally I hear that truck and I stand side of the road and I wait.

"Thought you were going to be at the lane," Pat says while I get in.

"Thought you'd be on time," I say.

"Seven o'clock," he says.

"Run by the schoolhouse," I say. I'm not going to argue with him.

"What for?"

"Something I got to pick up there."

"Boyo look at you," he smirks.

Well look at me if you must.


	52. Chapter 52

Deep in the Heart of Me 52

We get to Sobe's house and I can see the lamp is on.

"Hurry up," Pat says to me. He's already made it clear he wants to get us to the river so he can get back to town and meet his friends.

I am staring at the house, waiting for the door to fly open and her to run eagerly to the truck…to me.

But nothing happens.

"I'll be back," I say wrenching the door.

I don't like it. Why can't she be waiting? I go up the walk and knock and she doesn't answer. I push the door. "Sobe?"

There on the floor, a glove. Sobe's glove. I pick that up.

"Sobe?" I call a little more loudly.

I don't feel it here…life. Her.

"Sobe?" Louder still.

I quickly go through all the rooms, and there's nothing I haven't seen before, and there's nothing to show me they're still here.

I run upstairs. I don't call anymore. I go to her room and the wardrobe hangs open and something black half in the wardrobe, half on the floor. I take this in my hand. The black dress, the witch's costume.

I throw it down and tear from the room. The one where Sheriff sleeps, also stark and stripped.

I run downstairs, out the front door, across the lot, ignore Pat's call, go to the widow's, bang on the door.

She opens it, white and papery as an onion. "You," she says like I'm the devil.

I don't know I'm breathing so hard until I have to speak, "Do you know where Sobe is Ma'am?"

She stares at me, bright blue eyes and drawn tight lips. "She's gone with him, I suppose."

"You think or you know?"

She draws in that chin and it ripples.

"Please."

"She got in his car…looked like a trip. They were in a terrible hurry. Didn't even say good-bye and I been a good neighbor."

I tear away with her calling something after but I don't hear.

I'm in the truck. "Go to the station. Sobe is gone."

"Boyo…maybe it's best," Pat says.

I want to punch him for that.

"Drive," I yell while I hold it back. She couldn't have gone. She couldn't…she wouldn't betray me.


	53. Chapter 53

Deep in the Heart of Me 53

I expect to get to the station and find Fat Ned with his feet on the desk. I expect to have to pull this gun from the back of my pants and level it on his fat nose to find out where Sheriff has gone with Sobe.

But I get another big shock when we round the corner to the station and there, big as you please sits Sheriff's automobile.

"Now look cousin," Pat is saying as he drives the truck alongside of the Ford, "you might want to think on it a bit. You go flying in there he might be waiting."

I think to have that gun in my hand, but if he's going to shoot me I want one more look into Sobe's eyes so I can leave this world knowing if she betrayed me willfully or by force.

I get out of that truck and bee-line for the door and I burst in there.

"Oh Tonio," Sobe says from the cell, her hands on the bars. "Don't come in here. Don't come in," she says.

It's Sheriff at the desk, feet up there and ankles crossed even and arms folded. He has his hat and coat on and so does Sobe so I don't think I'm far behind. But Sheriff is holding his gun in one hand and a bottle in the other.

"What is this?" I say. He's locked up his own daughter?

"Run Tonio. Run…." Sobe starts again.

I am quickly crossing the floor to her, but Sheriff says, "Stop right there." His feet come down on the floor. "Right there," he says standing with that gun.

He is rounding his desk same time Pat shows up in the doorway.

I put my hand up that Pat should stop and Sheriff shoots him.

Sobe screams and Pat falls back and he's groaning.

"What the…?" I pull my own gun then and put it on Sheriff.

"Look at that," Sheriff says. "What I tell you about this one?" he says to Sobe. "That's right boy. You think you're gonna take my daughter and shoot me?"

"Oh God," Sobe says. "Let him go Dad. Oh God."

"You go for his father," Sheriff says to Pat like he's not laying there shot. "That's how we do it round here."

Sheriff motions me toward the other cell, the one Tillo and Utz occupied last time I was a guest here.

"Let me take Sobe home," I say. "I'll take Sobe home then I'll take Pat to the doctor and you can go," I say.

"You take my daughter? You arrogant son of a bitch!" he says.

"Dad no. Tonio is good. He's good!" Sobe yells. "Put that gun down. Don't you hurt him. Dad!"

He nods toward that cell once more. "Get in there."

"Dad, stop. You have to stop. Pat needs the doctor. Let Tonio go. Let him help Pat. I'll go with you. We'll leave," Sobe says frantic.

We're at a standstill. "You gonna shoot me?" he says cocking that revolver. He's got an ugly smile.

If I lower my gun I'm not sure what he'll do to Sobe.

He takes his gun off me and opens his arms wide. "You gonna shoot me boy? You think you're man enough? Gonna take my daughter? Kidnap her? Take my little girl?"

"Dad…," Sobe says. "Put the gun down. Put it down and we'll go. Let's just go."

"Pat?" I say cause he's gotten quiet. I can't afford to look at him. I'm watching Sheriff.

Pat doesn't answer.

"Dad," Sobe cries.

"Put the gun down like she says," I try to reason, two hands on the gun now cause I'm shaking. If I shoot his leg he'll shoot me.

I shoot his arm. His gun goes flying.

Sobe screams, "Dad."

I hurry closer to him. "Hang on Sheriff," I say. I'm so sick I'm breathing hard.

He reaches up with his strong hand and pulls my pistol by the barrel smack against his forehead. He wants me to shoot him.

I'm struggling to keep the gun. He's a strong son of a bitch and he uses his body, he kicks and kicks and it hurts like hell and he's trying to bring me to the bloody floor and I'm there before I know how it happened and we're just fighting for my gun now. I never been against it like this and I'm fighting with all I got.

Sobe is screaming and we're struggling. He's yelling and grunting and he gets on me and now I got his weight and it goes off and I'm not sure how or who.

He stops struggling.

I get him off and he's on his back, his arms wide. I'm sitting up, that gun still in my hand and Sheriff bleeding from the chest and staring up, mouth open and eyes open and it takes Sobe's screams to bring me around.

I am over him. "God, God," I whisper, putting my hands over that pumping red.

His face is death and I am there and then I fall to my butt and sit there, his blood on me, on my hands.

I am trying to breathe and she is calling my name and I look at her and she's on her knees, holding the bars, her mouth wide and she's calling me, I hear it at the end of a long tunnel seems like.

I try to shake that off and get on my feet. Got to get on my feet.


	54. Chapter 54

Deep in the Heart of Me 54

Part 2

I see the girls first, a bouquet of color against the flat and the green, but beyond them, straight and tall, a boy.

We pass the girls and they flutter, dresses and hands and I smile because they are pure.

I see him and my fingers move atop my lap.

I don't move my head, just my eyes. I don't move my head because Dad looks where I look when I do that. And I learned young not to see them, the long line of silent men working in our house and our yard. He told me to never look at them. Mom told me to never look at them so I learned to watch them without appearing to. I learned to use more than my eyes. I learned to feel another, feel they were there, feel their stories and their tears.

I learned to feel those things.

And this boy on the side of the road is not a prisoner. He stands there easy, straight and calm. This is his place and he knows it. This very road belongs to him.

He…is a prince, dark from the sun. Curious and bold.

This very road…is his.

My hand raises and I catch myself, but his hand has lifted…we are alike.

"You don't know him," my father says.

"You said I could have friends this time."

"You can. You can have friends," he says readjusting in the seat because the words are sharp and pointy in his throat but he's sorry it didn't work out in Springfield, sorry for what happened. And he'll be sorry for a while.

I wrap my pointer fingers around one another and pull. Maybe I can start over in this flat place that unrolls beside the car like the same and the same and the same.

But the boy on the side of the road….

He is the difference.

111111111111

In the classroom I see the boy right away. There is almost no one else. We stand there, my father and I and he has told my name. Isabella. But he corrects the teacher and says Sobe.

He protects the name.

It's what my mother called me.

Sobe, he says. And Bell. I am this girl now.

The teacher tells me to take the seat near the back where he sits. And others.

He watches me, the same way I watch him. I do not look but I feel it, his dark eyes on me.

When I move, it's because he is looking. I wonder if he finds me pretty or maybe I break the same and the same and the sameness like he does for me.

111111111111

Dad picks me up after school. I get in the car. I say it was fine, to myself. He does not ask.

As we pull from the yard I see Tonio Cullen looking after. I smile a little, to myself.

Now my dad asks how it was and I say, "Fine."

This will be a good place, he says. They will never find us here.

We are always moving.

I'm comforted to think they won't find us, that I won't have to feel those strange hands on me, shoving me along, into that dark room.

I am thirteen.

But inside I am old.

He is my father. My mother is dead.

She was like a butterfly put in a jar—short-lived…but beautiful.


	55. Chapter 55

Deep in the Heart of Me 55

1932

"You have to be the boss," Proctor says outside the door of the room I am held in with my mother.

He is saying this to our other captor Foley.

Proctor and Foley. Those names do not lead to arrest. Those names are not real.

I say, "You mustn't hurt us."

But I already know they plan to. If Dad doesn't send the money.

Proctor says I shouldn't worry. He says if our Dad loves us the money will come.

I've never been sure…about Dad. I've never seen him cow-tow. Not to criminals. He has a point to make. Whatever's necessary.

But Foley doesn't like Proctor speaking to me. They fight about it. Once they come to blows.

The brown stains run over the ceiling like veins with old blood. "It's a map," Mom says one night as we lay there staring up. And I see it. It's a map of our lives. It ends in this room.

She has not spoken in days. Hardly one word. But it's always that she whispers then, a map.

I tell myself it's not so different. We're here now, that's all, and no longer at the big stain in the corner where we came from.

I grew up inside prison walls. Our prison held some of the worst offenders. Our house sat beside the gun tower, stones hewn by the prisoners, built by hands that had broken rules or done unspeakable things.

They tended our gardens, washed our automobiles, drove us on errands, cooked our food, cleaned our house, repaired our appliances, washed our clothes, called us Little Miss and Ma'am.

My mother and I were curiosities. Lifers. Like many there we claimed to be innocent.

My father was a reformer. Three of the worst prisons in his career. They brought him in to set up a new order. What they valued in him—he would do whatever necessary.

His last assignment, where I grew up, they rioted. Guards poured in around the house. He wouldn't take us out. It would show fear. And my father wouldn't do that. So we sat inside the alabaster box. His treasure on the shelf. He brought that place to heel. He did whatever necessary.

My mother doesn't fight. Not since they took us and killed the detective. It's like they killed her too. He was going to take her away. She thinks that I don't know.

So I climb on top of myself, on the inside. I stand by myself in a new place and I tell myself, get stronger or you will die.

And looking back, and looking now—I lived.

11111111111111

1934

The next day at school, at recess, Tonio Cullen walks past me. I had wondered if I got him right. He's more if anything. As he walks past, he looks at me.

I follow him into the woods.

It's all I can do not to run after him. I hold one of the oranges from a basket in the new, old house we live in now.

A gift for the prince.

He stands on a log and I can't stop looking he is that beautiful.

I share my orange with him. His hands are strong and I love them. His eyes and his hands. He is loved. I wonder about his mother. He makes me feel this old thing called happy. But I never felt this happy before.

He gives me an apple and when I go inside, the class watches me and they 'ohh,' and I'm used to hiding the real things.

I give my apple to Miss Charlotte. I don't want to. When he comes in behind me and sees it, I know he misunderstands. He thinks I don't know that what happened between us was special. He thinks I don't know that.

So I write him a note. And he's caught, but he doesn't ramble. I hear each word, and the way he speaks them, and he opens this world to me, this flat world where I thought it was all the same, the same. And my heart hurts.

He quits then. He quits school and it's my fault. He is proud and too much for this place—too good.

I go after him. But he can't surrender. I see that. I couldn't either, even when Mother did, I couldn't find it in myself…even when pieces of Dad fell away….

I appeal to Miss Charlotte after school and when Dad comes inside to see where I am, I am urgent and demanding. We have to go to Tonio's farm. I have to make him see reason.

I am strong. Like Tonio was in his speech. I plead his case and his cause. And my father has to listen now. My father has to do what I ask because he's sorry about what happened in Springfield.

He was drunk and he thought I was my mother. He called me her name.

He passed out and I told him next morning while he sat on the bed with his head hanging and his hair standing. I told him before I saw the revolver in his hand and he put it to his head then and told me to go out.

But I wouldn't go out and let him die.

"You have to be the boss," Proctor said.

Well I'm trying.


	56. Chapter 56

Big thanks to the girls at Robsessed for mentioning this story in Fanfiction Friday.

Big thanks to all for reading.

Deep in the Heart of Me 56

Tonio

Sobe's father is dead. I can see that. A child could see it. Sobe is on her knees in that cell and she's saying things that aren't quite words.

I have to turn my back on her. I half crawl my way to the door and Pat.

He is breathing. He's coming around. He hit his head when he fell I think, or it's blood from his wound seeping onto the back of his hair. He's shot in his shoulder. The pain is setting in.

Sobe is yelling and I say, "He's all right." But I'm startled by my own voice and I don't know if she's worried over Pat or the other…one. I just don't know.

My hands are running over Pat. I have to get my knife and cut his clothes off his shoulder.

He tries to argue it but I say, "They are shot through!"

I end up ripping off my jacket, then my shirt so I can bind his wound.

Sobe is talking and I can't follow it, can't listen. But I am feeling her upset, feeling all of it.

I tear my bloody shirt and make a thickness and tie up Pat's wound. My hands are shaking, but it makes me nail myself down-doing this for Pat.

I'm speaking to Pat. I say hang on.

"Is it bad?" he asks.

"I killed him." I say it like I'm crying. I'm not I don't think, but my voice is.

"Is he dead?"

"I killed him," I say again. I might keep saying it and saying it.

"Shut up," he says. "Don't say it again."

"Sobe," I yell to let her know I'm here. But I keep looking at Pat. I'm watching him cause I don't know if he'll die. I can't let him. I don't know what to do.

Just like that people arrive. Jim and his dad. They heard the shots. Jim's dad goes past me into the station. "Oh God," he says. "Stay out Jim."

Jim drops to his knees by Pat. "What happened?"

Sobe is yelling. I should go to her, but Sheriff…I know she is safe in that cell. I don't know how to get her out. I'd have to find the key. I'd have to…but I don't know if it's safe. I know it is. But she's safe in that cell.

I ain't thinking right. I have to go to her. "You okay?" I say to Pat, but he don't look okay. Jim's dad is back. "What the hell you do in there boy? You need to go in there and lock yourself up until Ned gets here."

"I didn't…."

"Who did this?" he means Pat.

"Sheriff," I say.

"You two come to kill him?" he says.

"No," Pat says. He's barely talking now, but he gets that out just fine.

He sees me this way—killer. They all will.

"We just walked in. He went…he was crazy," I say. Well I ain't happy saying anything.

"You are in trouble boy," he says. "Get him in the Ford." He means Pat needs to get taken to the hospital now.

In no time we are pulling all of Sobe and Sheriff's things from the backseat and putting Pat in Sheriff's car and he's being taken to the hospital, same place he took Shaun.

I want to go but I can't leave Sobe. Jim's dad tells me to get in the station and hurry.

"Get in there," he says. He's got my own stolen pistol on me.

"I ain't running," I say.

"Go on," he says and I am nervous cause I don't doubt he's green enough with a pistol to plug me.

I go in then, in my bloody undershirt. Sobe is gripping the bars to her cell like a caged animal. "He didn't do anything," she's yelling on my behalf.

Jim's dad is firm. I need to get in that cell.

I curse and go in. The longer I dally the longer Pat waits for the doctor.

I go in that cell and he slams the door.

"Ned will figure this," he says then he's out.

Then I hear that Ford drive away and he's left us, me and Sobe jailed, across from one another, but in between laying on the bloody floor, the damn Red Sea…her father.

"Sobe did he hurt you?" I say. I don't know what I'll do if she tells me.

"He tried to kill you. He tried to…Tonio," she says.

"I'm all right."

We are looking at each other. I feel so much I can't name it.

But others have come along by now, seems like most of the men in town are pouring over here from the tavern. It is Friday night. Some are the ones Pat was going to meet after he took Sobe and me to the river.

"What happened?" they are asking me. "What happened?"

Mike is with them. "What's Dad's truck doing sitting out there with the door open? Where the hell is Pat?"

They've trampled the blood on the stoop. I tell him then. Sheriff shot Pat and they took him to the hospital. I have to explain he's all right. Least I hope so. It's in the shoulder.

Mike says he'll go for Dad and Uncle John.

I take to shaking so badly I can barely stand. I'm in my undershirt and someone passes my jacket through the bars and I put that on. My legs hurt, my shoulders, my ribs. It don't matter.

"Let us out," Sobe yells. "Let us out of these cells." She's saying where the keys are, she's demanding we be let out.

"How you get in there?" someone asks. They are debating that they should do anything before Ned comes. "It's Tonio. He's not going anywhere."

"Hellion that kid," another says.

"Blew up Smith's," someone else says.

"Got Shaun killed, now Pat."

"Don't let the womenfolk in here," someone says.

They want to know how I got locked up.

"It was self-defense. It was self-defense,"Sobe yells trying to shake bars that won't move, so shaking herself instead.

Someone finds the keys and she whips the blanket from her bed and soon as that door opens she's out and she puts a blanket over him, carefully covering his face.

Then they part and she comes to me. "I thought he'd kill you. He locked me…I thought he'd kill you Tonio."

She's up against the bars and I have my arms around her and I hold her with the hard bars between us.

I don't know how she might feel about me. I have his blood on me. And Pat's. I am thick with it. "Sobe," I say but maybe I just think it.

"It's all right Tonio," she says.

"Sobe," I say, that strange choking voice. I realize I hurt. My body hurts. I felt in him…not just the anger of fighting…like with my brothers…or Tillo or Utz. Not even like Big Belly. This was something else…something so beyond me I don't know the words to tell it.

"Tonio," she says and it's dry and strong, "thank God you're alive." She demands the keys, demands they let me out.

"This was self-defense," she says. "Innocent until proven guilty." She has the keys and she's unlocking my cell.

"She shouldn't do that."

"Who killed the sheriff?"

"Him from the looks of it."

"Keep him in there."

"My day we'd get us a rope," someone says.

I step out of that cage.

Besides the blood I can smell the drink on them.

"Get back from him," someone says sternly.

I know that voice.

"Dad," I say looking around. Then more loudly, "Dad."

And they part for him, and Ned comes in behind my dad. My Dad's face when he sees Sheriff, he looks from him to me. He looks at Sobe.

She goes limp then.

She's fainted. From strong and angry to this silence with her eyes still open like she's died.

I don't feel strong at all but I catch her before she crumples to the floor.

I don't know if I can lift her, but I do.

I go to the nearest thing and lay her on the desk but I keep hold of her. I hate them gawking at her. She's wearing a beautiful dress and I try to keep it pulled around her knees.

"Put her on one of the cots," Dad says.

"What happened here?" Ned is asking.

They are telling Ned broken bits of the story he doesn't know.

"If you've nothing to say, get out," he's saying loudly.

I lift Sobe and take her into the cell, lay her on the cot I'd napped on that day Sheriff brought us here and locked us up. That day those million years ago.

I kneel at the side of the cot. "Sobe," I say. And words just flood me.

Her eyes flutter open. "Tonio," she says. She rolls on her side and draws her knees. "I'm sick."

I look around for that bucket and scramble for it and get it to the side of her bed and she's sick in it.

I sit on the edge near her and smooth her hair back with my bloody bruised hand. "Did he hurt you?" I ask her, but she's crying now.

I am pulled onto my feet. It's my dad. Ned is talking close and he pushes my dad aside. He takes me firmly by the arm and away from her bed, and out of her cell, and across the floor and the cell I already know and he pushes me in and closes that door. He's telling my father it's as much for me as anyone.

"I'm taking him home and we'll sort this out," my father says.

"I can't let you do that," Ned says. "You know same as me he has to stay here while we sort it. We've got a dead sheriff," Ned says and there's a tremble in his voice.

He starts to clear the floor of stragglers then. Everyone out. Everyone but my dad and the woman who has worked her way in-Miss Pat Rivers.

She is staring at the blanket and the blood stain that has soaked it's middle. Well we all are.


	57. Chapter 57

Deep in the Heart of Me 57

As soon as Ned realizes Sheriff's gun has only one bullet missing he is on me about my weapon.

I haven't thought about it since…well since Jim's dad held it on me.

Did he take it?

"I don't know where it is," I say.

Dad looks about ready to find that gun and shoot me himself.

"I don't," I say because I don't.

"Did Pat do the shooting? You covering for him?" Ned says approaching my cell.

I look over at Sobe. She's standing at the bars of the other cell now. She's waiting to see how I'm going to answer.

"No sir, it was me," I say.

"I'll ask again, where's the damn gun?" Ned says.

I whip off my jacket. That pretty well shows me for a fella that isn't hiding a gun in his bloody undershirt. I hold up my hands and turn around.

Ned looks at Sobe. "I don't have it," she declares.

"You think you're real clever, don't you?" Ned says looking from me to her.

"No games here," Dad says.

"Dad…no games," I say wondering if James' dad knows he has it.

"Just a careless boy," Sheriff says. "You know that?"

"Tonio tried to stop him," Sobe yells.

"Stop who?"

"My Dad," Sobe says, though she doesn't seem as strong as before.

Sobe goes back to her cot and plops down. Miss Rivers sits next to Sobe. She pats Sobe's back.

"He knew I was meeting Tonio," Sobe says.

"How?" I say over Ned's next question.

"Explain that," Ned says glaring at me cause I'm not supposed to do his job I guess.

"I planned to meet Tonio tonight so we could…so we could go to the city. St. Louis. Tonio was going to take me there. But when it was almost time for Tonio to pick me up Dad showed up instead. He asked me if I planned to go somewhere and there I was all packed and wearing my good dress. I knew Tonio was going to pull up any minute so I asked him to please let me tell Tonio myself."

"Tell him what?" Ned says.

"That I couldn't go, of course. Dad was…he was so angry. More angry than I'd ever seen him. I begged him not to do anything to Tonio. I said we should leave. I didn't like it here anyway. I begged him to take us somewhere else. Another city. He said he didn't believe me. He…he had his pistol…and for a minute…he held it on me. He said…I was like…I think he thought I was Mom again. He said all women are bad and I was bad, too, to leave him. He grabbed my hair and held his gun to my head. He…he said I was a whore and…I begged him not to…shoot me…I kept saying it's me. It's Sobe. And he pushed me and…I fell and he said to pack quick.

"We loaded the car and…he went to the station and I said no, Dad, you said we were going to leave.

"He told me it was my fault. All of it. He knew I'd betray him. He knew it. But…he was smarter. So he made me go inside and he made me get in this cell and he locked me in.

"And he was drinking. He'd been…lately. He…had a difficulty…with drink and he'd quit. He'd promised….

"He was waiting for Tonio. I was begging him, pleading with him. I begged him to take us away. He said I wouldn't stay. I'd just…I'd just leave him. He saw that now.

"And Tonio came in and Dad held his gun on him and Pat was behind him and Dad shot Pat right away. Then Tonio drew his gun and…he was going to shoot Tonio.

"Tonio shot Dad in the arm. But Dad wouldn't stop. He rushed at Tonio and grabbed the end of his gun and held it to his forehead. Tonio said no and they fought so hard…Dad was…vicious and Tonio…they fought…so hard and Tonio got the gun down."

"You saying he held Tonio's gun to his own forehead? Why?" Ned says.

She takes a deep trembling breath. "He…wanted Tonio to shoot him."

"How do you know that?" Ned says.

"I watched him do it. Not just here…but at home. With his own gun. He wanted to die," she says.

"Wait a minute," Ned says. "You saying what?"

"He made Tonio do it," she says. "He made Tonio shoot him."

I fall to my butt on that cot and hold my head. She's right. That's what was different. He wasn't trying to kill me. He was trying to kill himself.

And I was trying to stop him. We were fighting for my gun. That's what it was.

"Then let him out of there," Dad says. "I'm taking him home."

"I can't do that just yet Cullen. I haven't even questioned him," Ned says. "For all I know these two have conspired."

111111111

Ned agrees to allow Miss Pat Rivers to take Sobe to her nearby home. The coroner will come to remove the body and Dad has insisted there's no need for Sobe to see that and Miss Rivers agrees, then Ned does.

I do not look at Sobe as she leaves. I can't. I want her taken away from the blood but I don't want her gone from me. She could have died. He nearly killed her. I could have entered a scene like that. I could have walked into it at their house…Sobe dead.

So none of this is the worst. I was thinking it was, but now I know none of this is as bad as it could have been.

I will not forget about her, not for a minute. We are held together by love and promise and blood now. We are held together by what I know and what I don't. We are held together by Sheriff much as I hate that, but we are not held together by her death or mine.

If Dad wasn't here I might let down some, I might not be able to help it. Especially when the coroner, Mr. Balmer and his son Klaus come for the body. Klaus is older than me, more like Shaun. We've played lots of ball though. He has a good right arm.

"You do this?" he says to me waving that same good arm at the body.

I don't answer cause I pretty much did. I shot first and whatever Sobe said about it, the law will see that I shot my weapon into a man, a sheriff at that.

When they take the stained blanket from Sheriff, and that middle part lifts heavy from the chest wound, I am slammed again most powerfully. I have killed Sobe's father. Well…I have.

Sheriff is shot twice, once in the arm, which I did to disarm him. Once in the chest which happened when we struggled.

Ned is looking at me like Satan is using my skin to deceive them all.

Dad leans on the desk and wears the same look as when we buried Shaun. He is the one who believes Sobe's take on it. He knows me. Or hopes he does.

Ned has called in two part time deputies. We know them both. Dad served with one, Albane, years back in The Great War. The other, Dooley, worked once as a hand during harvest. The telephone rings and law from other towns wants to come and Ned holds them off. He's more of a lawman than I ever knew. He still has that soft look, but he's taken charge tonight.

Dooley has been sent to look through Sheriff's house and to speak to the widow.

Albane is working outside on the door to keep a crowd from forming and that mostly means the men from the tavern. He sticks his head in and says Jasper is here. Of course he would be. Dad must go out for this son who worries over his brother. I get out of here I'm going to treat him better.

They are taking Sheriff's body out on a stretcher then and Jasper must see.

Him coming means they are worried at home. How much they've heard is a guess but Mike went for Uncle John and Dad. Dad said Uncle John went on to the hospital in Mauman with Mike. So Mom and Aunt Christah know of the trouble.

Ned calls into Mauman hospital and talks for a few minutes. Dad comes back in just as Ned reports that Pat is stable. I do cry some then, I just do.

I am asked for my side of it and I tell it this way-we were going to St. Louis. I had promised Sobe. We didn't mean harm. We were going to take the ferry and see the landing while the farmers came in for market and we wanted to see the riverboats and the zoo. And ride a streetcar and eat in a restaurant.

I figure playing the dumb youngster is pretty much what they expect.

My dad is looking more and more tired as I speak. "Where'd you get the money?" Dad says.

Now Ned didn't want Dad putting in his two cents, he made it clear. But he seems to agree with Dad that it's a good question.

My jacket lies on the floor where I'd flung it when showing I didn't have my pistol.

I have already surrendered my pocket knife, but the money is still on me.

"I saved some money," I say.

"You didn't rob the Sheriff?" Ned says.

"No," I say, then, "sir. I earned it." Well I did earn it.

Dad is looking at me. I am so tired I sit on the cot. Lies make things smoother but there is a heaviness about them none-the-less.

"Give it to me," Dad says approaching the bars.

I stand easy but I don't feel easy. I reach in and grab a bill. It's a twenty. I can see his surprise. He knows I didn't have this much. Two ones, yes, but not a twenty dollar bill.

He puts this in his pocket and the way he looks at me he knows I'm lying now and all the sympathy Sobe's story inspired is back on the table and anyone's guess.

"What happened next?" Ned says.

"I went to get Sobe. Pat drove me."

Dad scoffs and stares at the floor, arms folded over his chest.

Ned shoots Dad a look. "Went where? The moon?"

"I went to Sobe's house."

"What time?"

I tell him that and I'm on time too. "But Sobe isn't there," I say. "No one is."

"That when you stole the money? From Sheriff's house?" Ned says.

Dad is looking at me.

"I told you…I earned it."

I tell him about going to the widow's.

"Is that where you got the money?" Ned says.

"No," I say like I'm the apostle Peter denying Jesus. "I guess I was raised better than that!" I say, but Dad is looking at me like he doesn't know where I was raised.

Anyway I'm glad I can deny being a bandit. For now.

"So Sobe wasn't around and you got mad and came over here and killed the sheriff." Ned gestures to the bloody discarded blanket on the floor.

"No. All I did was ask Missus Olmstead if she'd seen Sobe and she's the one said her and Sheriff left in a hurry. You can ask her," I say.

"Where's the gun, kid?"

"I don't know where the gun is," I say.

"You telling me it walked out of here?" he says.

That's exactly what happened. "No sir. I'm saying I don't know what happened to it."

"What gun?" Dad says. "Pat bring a gun? Did you have your rifle?"

My mind is racing. "No sir. I…had a pistol."

"Is it yours?" Dad says.

"Well…yes. I…bought it," I say. It is cold in my undershirt but I am sweating.

"From Mike?" Dad says.

"No. From a kid," I say.

"What kid is this? A Smith?" Dad keeps going.

"Just a kid, Dad. It doesn't matter anyway," I say too loudly. I stand again, go to the bars. "It doesn't matter what it was, where I got it, who it belonged to. Sheriff held his gun on me and he thought about killing me. And I knew that, you always know that, you can see it and feel it." I think of Big Belly then. "He shot Pat and I shot him in the arm because I worried if he killed me he'd kill Sobe too. And he charged me and pulled the barrel of that pistol and held it against his forehead, Dad. And I could barely get him to lower it. He was strong and crazy. He was kicking the shit out of me."

I undo my pants and let them fall to the floor to show my bruised legs. They are a sight. With my pants around my boots I say, "I got that gun around his chest and it went off, that's all I know. Him or me, I don't know but I never meant to kill him. He was trying to kill himself."

Dad has moved to the door of my cell.

"Open this!" he says to Ned, and Ned, muttering, complies. Dad comes into my cell and bends for my pants and like I'm two years old again he pulls them up on me and fastens them, even my belt.

He steps back, and there on the floor is the rest of my fifty dollars.

Well shit.


	58. Chapter 58

Deep in the Heart of Me 58

"It's my savings," I say to Dad.

I earned it all right. I'm still earning it-right now as I keep my mouth shut about Smiths robbing Shaun, and Shaun blowing up the outhouse, then getting shot for it.

Smith doesn't want the trouble. He didn't want Sheriff looking too closely at the game he runs even if Prohibition is lifted. Gambling for money is not.

Shaun said our old sheriff always got a cut. "That's the way the world works, boyo," he'd say.

But this new sheriff, Shaun didn't know about him. Does that make Ned in on it too?

I'd tell them the truth, but it all points back to the Smiths and that's when they'll point back at me and I'm trying to be the stupid youngster, not a thieving, shooting delinquent who tusseled with another crazy man who tried to kill him…and that I took his gun…and shot out the windows on his automobile…while he was driving. Yep I don't think that story will serve me here when it comes to being above reproach.

So the money is on the floor and I think of that scripture about a person's sins being found out, being shouted from the rooftops. I think of that in seconds.

Ned's boots crunch grit as he gets next to Dad and they look at that money like I just dropped an egg.

Ned says, "You find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?"

"I wanted to show Sobe a good time," I say.

Dad is staring at me.

"Shaun," I say. "It was his. He…was afraid he'd lose it after the robbery so I kept it for him."

The way Dad is looking at me now, he knows. He knows his son is a liar and probably a killer too.

Our minister comes in then. Like God sent him. He wants to pray with me. It's like I'm waiting for the gallows.

He's trying to comfort Dad, but Dad barely takes his eyes off me. Giving me a hiding about now might comfort him but I doubt prayer will do it.

Ned takes a seat at the desk, the same place Sheriff had been when I came in here earlier. The blood is still there, and the blanket. I swear I can smell that mess.

Preacher says, "Remember the thief on the cross. He had done terrible things, but Jesus forgave him. You may have to die for what you've done here, but God won't hold it against you if you confess the name of Jesus."

"Dad," I say, like he holds the gavel, "I didn't…."

Dad takes Preacher aside and they speak in low tones.

The preacher comes back. "Let's pray." He prays then, in his loud nasally tone, that God's will be done and that I repent of being a sinner. I guess he forgets that time he dunked me in that muddy pond one July. But I pray right along and lo and behold, I am feeling sorry. Mostly about the money and the look on Dad's face. He might as well call me a thief, like the one on the cross.

I get out of here, I'll be a better son. I promise God right there. Just get me out.

"I didn't want to kill him," I say to the preacher. "I mean…it was an accident."

"Shaun or the Sheriff?" Preacher says.

Well I don't know how to answer that.

"I didn't shoot Shaun," I say. They can't pin that on me.

"Oh," he says. "Folks around here say you did. I'm sorry."

"It's…all right," I say.

"Well…be brave," he says. "Remember Joseph did very well in prison. And Paul wrote the book of joy there."

I have no idea how that helps me.

"Thank you," I say.

When Preacher leaves I am done in. I plop onto the cot. "I didn't shoot Shaun," I say to Ned.

"Let's talk about the money," Ned says. "Where in the world does a boy like you get that kind of money?"

"It was Shaun's," I repeat.

"And you're saying he gave it to you?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you saw that money and you wanted it so you could run off with Sobe?" Ned says.

I stand again. I'm to the bars.

"Awfully full of yourself in front of that girl," Ned says. I think he's talking about before when I got put in the other cell for the fight with Tillo and Utz. I wasn't showing off too much in here, was I?

"No Sir…."

"Maybe that Preacher is right. You wanted that money to impress that girl so you killed Shaun and took it."

"I didn't," I yell.

"Hold on," Dad says. "You can't accuse him of killing a man. Shaun was gambling. He was in trouble with some bad people. My son had nothing to do with that. You and the sheriff never did get to the bottom of it, but don't you think for a minute you're going to pin every goldurn thing on this boy of mine. I'll get the best lawyers a wealthy man can afford to rip this county in two like it's a feather pillow if you don't pull back on these charges and let him the hell out of here right now.

"We both know what happened here. It's been told plain. He was up to some hare-brained scheme like many a stupid young person before him and it went badly cause he didn't figure in a mad man. I believe what Sobe said. She knew the sheriff better than anyone. He used my son for his own end and now you're trying to use him to dump a killing on you're too…we know you don't touch that nest."

Dad said something there. Ned's face gets a deep ruddy color.

"Pat was shot first. He's going to back up Sobe's story and then you'll be left hanging in the wind and my son will be seen as the hero he is.

Let him out."

Ned needs a few seconds to let Dad's words sink in. Well I do too. Hero?

"I…I can't do that Cullen. I got a dead lawman and your son pulled the trigger!"

"Who can lay blame on him when Pat was shot for walking in a door! I taught him to defend himself. You've got a dead lawman the world is well rid of and I've got a brother who will want some kind of justice for a son nearly killed by a maniac."

Dad scoops up the money and my jacket. "You know where he'll be. He's not going anywhere."

Ned is staring at Dad.

"I'm not letting him up here to get 'accidentally shot.' You already have one killer running loose. He's not another, and I won't take chances with him. He's my son."

"He'll have to go before the judge," Ned says.

"You tell us when and where. He'll be there," Dad says. "But you've no cause to arrest him and you can't just hold him."

"I can do whatever I want," Ned says adjusting his holster.

"Let my boy out," Dad says.

It's Moses and Pharoah. And me—well I'm the Israelites.

I've got my fingers crossed deep in my pockets.

"What about Sobe?" I say cause I'd rather stay here, across from her than be home where I can't see her fate. I've been trying to get her on that farm one way or another from the first. "She needs to go with us."

Ned glares at me, but so does Dad. Here he is fighting for me and I add more. But Sobe isn't someone I'm likely to forget.

"She's got no reason to be locked up," Ned says, "but you can forget taking her home like the little heifer you just bought at the sale."

"I ain't leaving without Sobe," I say grabbing onto the bars.

"She is staying with Miss Rivers," Ned says. "You are to have no contact with her until this matter gets settled. Hear me? I get wind you reach out to her and I will haul your ass back in here so fast. That matter goes, don't you step a toe off that farm."

"Say yes," Dad orders. "Tonio!"

"Does she want to stay with Miss Rivers?" I ask.

"That's not your look out," Ned says.

"Tonio!" Dad says again.

"Does she want to?" I repeat.

"She is with the woman right now," Ned yells.

Dad bundles my jacket in one hand and grabs me with his other. We go out then and Ned tells the deputy and it is dark and a moon up there and the air cold and clear and next I know I'm in the truck for home without my darling girl.


	59. Chapter 59

Deep in the Heart of Me 59

We drive in silence. I have looked all around while in town, trying to figure where Miss Rivers lives. I know Jasper will know and he can get Sobe a letter. I think of what I'll write. Not being able to speak with her will make me go mad. I know she spoke the truth at the station but how will she feel about me now?

Dad is silent so I'm free to compose. 'Dear Sobe,' I'm trying not to think about what we might be doing right now if our plans had succeeded. I would be holding her, I know that. She would be mine. I know that.

The truck comes to an abrupt stop and I am flung forward. I catch myself on the dashboard. We have just turned onto Cullen Lane it appears. Dad is quickly out of the truck and coming around to my side. Did I say something? No. I haven't said a word.

He whips my door open and grabs me by the front of the jacket and pulls me out but I stay on my feet. He growls like a beast and turns me in a circle and I'm tripping along but I don't fall. He slams me against the side of the truck and now he's crying and his forehead is against mine and his eyes are squeezed shut and he's holding to the front of my jacket still and he's breathing…very hard.

He makes that growl again and I barely breathe.

"Where did you get the money?" he says in a strangled voice, eyes still squeezed shut.

I swallow. He pulls back his head and shakes me three times and slams me back and he's right in my face. "Where did you get it?"

I swallow. "I…I can't say Dad."

He slaps me in the face, makes a sobbing sound and pulls me to him again, foreheads again and his eyes are closed and the breathing. "Tell me every last shittin' bit of it or I swear to God above I'll finish you and bury you in the ditch and tell your mother you ran off."

We are there and I'm breathing now too, in that loud way. He's got his forehead against me and I don't know if my thoughts are bleeding into his brain but his are bleeding into mine and he really will kill me.

"I…," I try to push away and he slams me back to the truck.

"Tell me!" he screams into my face.

"Otto! Otto Smith!" I yell back.

He lets go of me then and steps back. He's huffing.

My face is on fire. I touch my cheek.

"You been working for Otto? With Shaun?"

"No!" I yell again. "I went on my own." Well…with Shaun. As it ended up. And…Pat. I decide not to bring them into it. Especially Pat as he's still alive. I hope.

"How did you get that money. Boy…." His finger is in the air.

"I got it for finding his mule. I found his mule and returned it and he gave me fifty dollars! I was looking for the colt and I found the mule! I knew it was Otto's! I took it to him and he paid me fifty dollars!"

"You've got to give it back!"

"No! It's what they took from Shaun! I took it for Shaun!" I may have said too much there. "I earned it!"

"We are beholding to no Smiths!" he says.

"They came on our land! They hurt Shaun!"

"He was a fool! He jeopardized our family!"

I can't believe he sees it that way. I can't believe it!

"You think that and you've done nothing about it! Well I'm not a coward!" I say.

He slaps me again.

"You are a fool. A bigger fool than Shaun even. You could go to jail for this."

"I didn't…."

"It's not over yet! If they want you to go to jail, you will go!" he says.

"But I'm…."

"It's not about that! It's about what they want! You stupid child!" he says. "And you tried to take a man's daughter. Do you know what I'd do if you tried to take my daughter?"

"Apparently nothing!" I say. I do.

He lunges for me then. But I don't take it. I try to get his hands off my neck. I hurt all over and he's strong. He's so strong.

But he stops himself.

I realize he's not going to choke me. He just wants to pretend. So I quit struggling and let him at it.

"God above," he mutters, pushing me off so I land against the truck. "God above," he says again.

Then he gets in the truck.

"I'll walk," I say getting ready to slam the door.

"Get your ass in here," he says.

And I do.

He has his foot on the brake. "Where is the pistol?"

I take in a breath like I'm coming clean, which I am. Some. "I guess Jim's dad took it along in Sheriff's Ford when he took Pat to the hospital."

"Why would he do that?"

"He…he held it on me. He put me in the cell. I…I guess he took it along."

Dad wipes over his mouth and his mouth is hanging open when he's done. "God above," he says again.

I keep my eye on him and I try to think on my letter. I'll write it tonight and first thing after milking I'll get Jasper to take it.


	60. Chapter 60

Deep in the Heart of Me 60

First Dad pulls the truck to the bunkhouse and has me shuck my duds and he burns my clothes in the stove there and I keep my shorts on and get in the tub and cold water and Dad says he's sorry but Maman can't see me with that blood and heating the water would take too long.

I'm thinking he's burning my getting married clothes, but he don't know it.

I keep my shorts on and once I'm clean I get out of the water and he looks over every mark on me and rubs the dark bruises with linament.

"You were fighting a man," he says. A crazy man. But I don't add to it.

He gives me clothes we keep in the house there, not Shaun's, but clothes too worn to wear, too good to go in the rag-bin.

I am so tired I can barely move, but I put my feet back in my boots and Dad combs my hair with his comb and my eyes are trying to close and he rouses me and pulls me up by the arm and we go to the house.

My maman and my granma have waited up, and here comes each of the girls, well it is a knot of nightgowns and tears and I am caught in its middle.

I put my arms around my mother and my grandmother and pat their backs. I don't know what is wrong with me that I do not feel sentiment. I am so sorry they are sorry and that I brought them to it, this worry. I never meant to do this. I thought I was about to make them happy. So happy.

But now I can't feel the soft in me. Maybe it's gone away. Now that I've been in the killing. And worry over Sobe fills me.

"I will be fine, Mom," I say. I say this to Granma and them all. I will be fine with Sobe and Pat there to see how it was. I will tell the judge and it will be over.

But Maman has a million questions, and some I answer and some Dad answers. Then they are all sent to bed and I tell Maman I'm so tired. I am soon upstairs and getting paper from Jasper. He and Emmett are going to take over now and ply me with questions, but I tell them both I'll talk to them in the very near morning. I tell Jasper about the letter and he must take it soon as milking is done, and get an answer, that's the thing. He knows where the new teacher lives so it's very hopeful I'll get some relief.

But before I can get to writing Jasper clings onto me like a pea vine and he takes to crying quiet and his quiet cry is no light thing.

It gets to me now. I can feel myself crumbling down. I killed a man today. Well we were nose to nose almost when that pistol fired. I killed Sheriff. And it hits me the way he did.

I push Jasper off. I fall on my bed.

"You all right?" he says sniffing and that.

I am not so all right. But I will be. Once they all let me be so I can write.

Dear Sobe,

I got to go home and Fat Ned said you were going to stay with Miss Pat Rivers. I don't know if that suits you. Ned says we can't see each other until we talk to the judge. I don't know how long that is but if you need me, then my dad could speak to Ned and see about you coming here. Or I will come to you if you are afraid or upset.

Sobe, I keep thinking about it, and your face. I keep thinking about what you said happened, how he held the gun on you. Sobe I didn't know how far he would go. I thought he would always take care of you. I don't know how he found out, do you? You didn't say so you probably don't. No one knew but Pat. He's who I told about it. He knew about us getting…you know.

If we had, then—got, you know—then I think what it might a been like when we got home. With him like that—Sobe, I didn't know. If I would have, well you didn't tell me.

I still know I love you very much. A lot in fact. There will be no other for me as I've already said. But I have to know, Sobe, I got to know if you still feel the same for me. I can get through anything if I know you still love me.

Do you? If you say you still love me I will probably be the happiest I've been, all things aside that are troubling and terrible.

But if you don't you have to tell me. I may join the army or travel the country selling magazines but I will have to go far away to work off my broken heart.

If that's possible.

For now, I know you need me to hold you. That's if you still love me. I know you need me to hold you because you will feel alone. You will remember the bad things you went through and you'll feel so sad. I am holding you in my mind. If I could, I would hold you Sobe. I would tell you again that I'm yours if you'll have me. You won't ever be alone long as I'm alive.

(Unless you don't want me. Then I'll be doing the aforementioned.)

Your steadfast admirer always,

Tonio Cullen

Once I get it done, I think of driving straight to the home of Miss Pat Rivers so I can put it in Sobe's hands and make sure she is okay. But the folks are so upset, I have got to set a limit on myself. They have suffered enough and I can't get locked up again.

It will be milking time in a couple of hours and I will do that and send Jasper on his way and she will know.

And I will know.


	61. Chapter 61

Deep in the Heart of Me 61

In the morning we finish chores and I prevail on Jasper to hitch a ride into town on the milk truck and deliver my letter.

I ask my dad if Sobe can come to us so we can help her bury her father and be her family. I will gladly go back to jail so she can be here.

"Maman and the girls are going to Sobe," Dad says. "You will stay put on this farm as you've been told to do. Do you hear me Tonio?"

"I can go to Uncle John's," I say warm to the notion I'd be on the neighboring farm. I could get to her and they'd be none the wiser then. "And Sobe could come…."

"Sobe is being provided for by Miss Rivers. Elsie will stay with her. Maman will see to her. She will help Sobe."

"But…Sobe knows everyone here, she…."

He puts his hands on my arms. They feel like iron bands. "Tonio. Submit." He goes on to say more, and I do understand. But Sobe has lost the only sad piece of a family she had left. Even if she wouldn't want her father back, she has to feel alone.

I can only thank God my letter is on its way.

I walk the line of our farm. It is flat here on this road and across the way I can see into the sky. I have been miserable, like I can't stand still. It's so bad I take to jumping and pacing and throwing sticks. I know I'm cold and my legs hurt, my side, but it doesn't matter. Trucks pass me as they come back from market and I break a little more inside. We would be married. We would be happy and this is the day we would have ridden the streetcar and gone to the zoo, perhaps, or eaten that meal in a fancy place.

Finally Jasper comes and jumps off the back of someone's truck and we wave and I step by the milkstand and grab onto him. "Did she send something?"

His breath puffs white in front of his parted lips and he nods. He reaches in his jacket and pulls out a folded letter.

I want to make sure he didn't read it, but there's no time, and I'm grateful to him, I am. My eyes look at her writing and my heart pretty much fists up then goes like a rabbit.

"Dear Tonio,

I am sorry to you, Tonio. I keep seeing it, the way you had to fight him. I keep seeing him wanting so badly to die, willing to hurt whoever got in his way.

I am waiting for him to come here and say, "Where is my daughter!"

We have been children in our hopes and dreams. I know that. But we are not children now. Not in anyone's eyes.

Sobe

I read it twice. I am vaguely aware of Jasper complaining over the cold and I read it as I follow him only a few steps down the lane.

She is suffering. I must take off and see her. I must be with her. She'll be…she is in a bad, bad way. I knew it. I knew that.

"What did she seem like?" I say catching up to Jasper.

"Miss Rivers?"

"Sobe! Was she sad?"

"Oh," he says, patting all of his pockets before finding what he's looking for and getting it out and giving it to me, a photograph of Sobe standing before a curtain by a little table on which she leans her elbow and stacks her hands. She is not smiling but looking into the camera with a serious expression.

She is beautiful. "You had this all along!" I try to yell at my brother, but I can't really. It's some comfort to look at her image. But it's not enough. And this letter is not enough—her words are not enough. They are too much!

And I don't know what I'm going to do about it. But then I don't have to.

I hear that motorbike before I look and it is Miss Pat Rivers riding it down our lane, a scarf blowing behind. But that funny little bullet on the side, that's what I'm looking at.

"Sobe," I say and I run for them then.

Miss Rivers come to a halt and snow is flurrying about, and Sobe's cheeks are red as they can be and she's fumbling to stand and I get to her and I have her out of that car and I'm holding her then. "Sobe," I say in there, but I can't say too much cause I'm holding her to me and she cries then, I think we both do, but it doesn't matter.

"Oh my," Miss Pat Rivers says, but we don't look. We don't care to.

"You didn't say you loved me," I say into her thick hat for my face is pressed there.

She holds onto me so tightly.

Something settles in me then. I readjust and hold her more solidly.

"Will you father allow this?" Miss Rivers is saying. "I didn't ask the deputy. I just…I was worried about her."

I look at Miss Rivers then, but I do not slacken my hold on Sobe. "He will not object," I say, knowing he might and knowing I shall have my way. When Maman sees Sobe and feels how shattered she is inside, Maman will know we can't send her back.

I pick her up then, right up. She is little, but heavier than you think, but I don't mind.

"You can't carry her all that way," Miss Rivers says. "Put her in the sidecar."

But I just keep walking. Miss Rivers doesn't know me.

Jasper runs past me though. "Can I ride in it then Miss Rivers?" he says.

He gets his way, for in a few minutes they pass and he waves.

But I do not smile. I am holding Sobe and she is limp against me. I feel she is broken, but I know we will gather the pieces, my family. And I will hold her like this until the glue is dry and she will be my Sobe still.


	62. Chapter 62

Deep in the Heart of Me 62

"Is she sick? Will she die?" I ask, stepping away from Sobe's bedside long enough to meet Maman in the doorway and take a pan of warm water from her.

We have her in Granma's bed. That's where Maman told me to lay Sobe when I carried her into the house. It's the only one that's private. Mom had to help me get my arms from beneath her. They were frozen in position from holding her and it was hard to straighten.

"Antonio," my mother says. She is concerned, not only for Sobe, but for me. I have not spoken with her, not in the way I know she desires, since I came home from jail in the wee hours.

She doesn't know that when I was trying to run off to St. Louis with Sobe, I was trying to get married. She only knows that I, her son, have killed Sheriff. She would not put it that way. She would say that terribly sick man nearly killed her boy. She would say it like that.

So I am at her elbow now as she sits with Sobe and mothers over her, wiping my sweetheart's feverish hands and forehead.

"She has to get better," I tell Maman setting the fresh pan on the nightstand.

"Tonio," Sobe says and I go around to the other side of the bed and drop to my knees.

"I'm right here." I take her hands and hold them tightly. She is on her side, her eyes closed. She keeps our joined hands against her heart.

I kiss her temple and feel how warm she is.

"She is grief sick," Maman says wiping away my kiss as she dabs at Sobe's forehead. "She needs rest and care. Pray for her, Tonio. Pray outloud."

I don't. Just at supper a couple of times. Not like this. But Maman is tired and serious. I bow my head. Sobe is mad at God and I hope this doesn't make her mad at me. "Lord please help Sobe get better and…thank you for bringing her to the farm. Amen."

"Amen," Maman says.

Sobe just keeps crying. It's not loud crying, it's quiet crying. It's nearly silent. She can't talk to us anymore. She can't look at us. But she holds my hands.

Maman wipes Sobe's forehead again. She even has slicked back her hair. I stay right there, my hands with hers.

"I love her," I tell Maman but I'm looking at Sobe. I love her so much.

Maman keeps wringing the rag.

"I am going to put her in a gown. Get Miss Rivers and stay out," Maman says very seriously.

"I can't leave her," I say. Well I'd have to pry my hands away and I don't want to.

"Tonio," Sobe whimpers, keeping her eyes closed.

"I'm here," I say.

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Dad comes first. He'd taken Emmett and gone to Uncle John's to help Mike with chores.

He argues with Maman and Miss Rivers tries to help. He is in the doorway and tells me to come out. He looks at Sobe and his eyes are troubled.

I have to pry my hands and she whimpers. I kiss her temple again and say I'll be right back. She doesn't respond and Miss Rivers takes my place.

I follow Dad deeper into the kitchen.

"Pack some clothes. We'll go see Faraday," he says.

Faraday is Ned. My Dad looks tired. He sounds tired.

"Dad…Sobe needs me," I say.

"Do what I say Tonio."

I know he is right and if either of us gets to stay here it must be Sobe.

Upstairs I pack my knapsack quickly. I make sure to get Sobe's picture from beneath my pillow.

I'm soon back with Dad. But first I need to see Sobe. She looks the same. I do not tell her good-bye, but it rips my heart further to think of leaving her.

Dad doesn't say anything on the way to the station. When we get there, Ned is on a call so we must wait. When he comes in he is carrying my pistol.

"You must be a mind-reader," he says to me. "Saved me a trip to your farm."

He holds the pistol so I can see it. "Familiar?"

"Yes Sir," I say. "It's a Luger."

"Yeah it's a Luger. There ain't a granma in the county wouldn't know that," Ned says.

I can see dried matter on it. Sheriff's blood.

"Where did you get it?" he says.

I stand there like a dummy, but I don't want to say.

"Tell him," Dad says with force.

"It was Shaun's," I say.

Dad stares at me. He already knows I'm a liar. He knew Shaun's rifle. See we know one another's weapons. We shoot them, swap them, admire them or covet them, brag on them, and show-them-off while we hunt.

Shaun didn't have a Luger. And Dad wouldn't have one, not after the war. He didn't have fond memories. He said a Luger had almost no muzzle rise so was made to be shot from instinct. He admired the design but he had no wish to own a Luger.

"Shaun let me shoot it. I was going to buy it from him," I say.

"With that fifty dollars," Ned repeats like he's listening to the biggest bull-shitter ever lived.

"Well according to Mike and Shaun they'd never seen that pistol before," he says. "My guess is that's the same Luger we been looking for, the one that killed Shaun. I think we got us a real interesting development here."

"I didn't kill Shaun," I say. "I'm no killer." Well I'm not.

Ned is standing and moving toward me. I look at Dad. His face is pale and his mouth is open. He's looking at me like he doesn't know me at all.

"Dad, it wasn't me."

Ned herds me into the cell and I go easy. The sound of that door still jars. I don't know if Sobe will be all right without me.

God, if I tell them, I put Big Belly up for it. He held a rifle on me at Otto's. He didn't use the pistol until we were in the car. But that doesn't mean he hadn't used the Luger to shoot at us. Especially Shaun being on foot.

Me, I was riding Jack Bastard through the yard. He could of shot at me with that pistol, it goes for a mile. Makes sense he would have had that on him first since they were inside at that game and not expecting trouble.

People don't go to the law on Otto Smith. They just don't. I start this there will be no end to it.

"I'm gonna have to get the truth out of him," Ned says to Dad. "I can't do it with you looking on."

Dad says, "You plan to lay a finger on him you'll go through me."

Ned shifts his weight to one side, hands on hips, "He'll go down for murder."

"Let me have some time with him," Dad says.

"You've had all night," Ned says back.

"Give me five minutes!" Dad yells.

"I've covered up a lot of shit in my time here. I should a been sheriff when Jim Tolson died. We both know it but you didn't stand for me. They brought in this new hire and folks didn't take to him no matter how fancy his party or how pretty his daughter he wasn't ever gonna be one of us. Now I know how it goes around here. I know how the Cullens are thought about, believe me I do." He points at me, "This one's coming on an age, he thinks he's gonna write the law to suit him cause his daddy and his uncles own the county. Well it ain't so." He laughs some. "Smiths own the county and we both know it cause they will do what they got to."

Dad steps closer to Ned, "You listen to me, give me five minutes with my son and I'll not only do your job, I'll keep your oil drum full just like I did for Tolson and you won't pay me a mill."

They stare for a minute and Ned walks around Dad and goes out and slams the door.

Dad gets close to the cell. "Come here, boy."

I am standing right before him. He reaches in and grabs me around the back of the neck and pulls my face against the bars. "Two reasons you will tell me everything. One is your mother. Two is the unborn child she carries."

"You bribed him," I say. I don't know my own father. He bribed Fat Ned. Fat Ned!

He lets go and I resist rubbing my face where the bars pressed. It's too much for me. Too big. I won't kill Maman over it. Nothing else matters. But I've been mad over the new baby. For a long time.

"Time you saw what a man has to do…," he says.

"That's a man?"

"I've nine children and one on the way you idiot!" he yells and that vein that runs down his forehead fills up blue.

"You're the one who will kill Maman, not me! You promised there would be no more babies," I say. "You're the liar!" I think that's when it all started. I really do. I've been looking to get him for that. I have.

"My God. It's a wonder I haven't killed you myself," he says. "So full of pride and arrogance." He grabs me round the neck again and says right in my face, "Talk or I swear on Shaun's grave I will walk out of here and leave you on your own to choke on your hubris you foolish prodigal."

He lets me go and backs away and I wipe his spit from my face. Now I want to tell him. "The night of Sheriff's party I went on Smith land to steal Otto's mule. I did steal it. And they shot at me. And while I was tearing hell across their yard the outhouse blew up. Shaun."

I think he takes the Lord's name in vain here, but I go on.

"We met up, me, Pat and Shaun. They'd been shooting at us and I guess Shaun got hit. But he didn't say so we didn't know. Anyway we had Pat's colt in the truck and got the mule in too. I went my own way and Pat was so drunk he wrecked the truck and the mule got out. Well I saw the mule and found the wreck and Shaun was out of the truck and…he was…he looked dead. But we got him in the truck and Pat made me leave. He wouldn't let me be involved.

"So I found the mule and took it to Otto and he paid me the fifty. A reward. But he knew it was me took it. So…Belly drove me to the bottoms and pulled the Luger and wanted the money…and to kill me. But I got the gun and got away. And I shot out the windows on Otto's car."

I know I look proud. I know I shouldn't. So something hits cause Dad's face…. So I'm not so proud on the next, "But…he drove off and…I lived. But Shaun…didn't. And that's why they haven't come for me. They're just waiting for me to tell it. Then they will come. Again. Cause they been on our land once," and I rally here and I'm mad again, "…and you didn't do a thing about it. So…I did."

I don't like the way he's looking at me. But I can't fix it now.

"I'm…sorry. For most of it. But…not all. They shouldn't of come on our land."

He is staring at me.

And me…I'm staring back.

"Why did you have that pistol?" he says this very flat and serious.

"I was taking Sobe into the city. We planned to spend two nights."

"Mother of…," he says.

"We were going to…get married."

He moves his lips to say the 'm' but no sound comes out.

"Sheriff found out somehow. He…he was really mad."

Now I see sparks in his eyes. I really do.

"Are you…are you still glad I'm your son?" I say. I just want to know where I stand.

For a minute I don't think he's going to answer. Then he says, "Damn if I didn't hope you had some of your mother, but no, you're more my cloth than the rest." He is looking past me now, like he sees to the bottom of an endless dark pit. He takes in a breath and faces me, "You'll tell it now. Just like that. Leave out the marrying, you'll only embarrass yourself and it's bad enough."

"What about the pistol?"

"It's your word against his. Shaun could have taken it. I doubt he'll be anxious to tell of how he tried to kill you. I'll take care of the Smiths. You'll tell about the high-jinx and that's all. You returned the mule and that's the end of it. You'll be the fool for a while, but you'll be alive."

"But they'll come for us," I say.

"I'll deal with the Smiths," Dad says.

"Yes sir," I say. "But I'm still marrying Sobe."

Dad gets close to the bars. "And when this is over, I'll deal with you. Boyo." Now he does smile, but it's not kind.

"How so?"

"Pity the girl that marries you and your crooked fifty dollars while your brain is still trying to grow some common sense," he says.

I let him have the last word. I owe him that maybe.

But of course, he's very wrong.


	63. Chapter 63

Aw thank you Robsessed for once again mentioning this story in Fanfiction Friday. I pretty much love you for this (knuckle-bump).

I'm up for somethings. Twificrecs. If you're voting for me thank you so much. Thanks to the site for holding the contest.

Thanks to Sunflower Fran for hosting Counselor's Corner on Facebook and Jedigirlsc for hosting counselor's stories. Love to you both.

Thanks to everyone for encouragement and readership.

Hope you all have a great weekend planning for Turkey Day. A day of gratitude and gluttony! Yeah!

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Deep in the Heart of Me 63

Dad talks to Ned outside where I can't hear so well, even standing under this up-high sorry excuse for a window.

So I'm stuck in here waiting on my fate. I can't help looking at that spot where I killed Sheriff.

Then at that cell and seeing Sobe there. I hope they don't leave me in here alone too long. It's torture thinking Dad might spring me. It's worse thinking he won't.

I close my eyes and think of Shaun. He left me out there. Not even telling me about the dynamite.

Here I was riding through the yard like a target in a turkey shoot with the Smith's emptying weapons. Well I brought it on myself, sure. But that explosion didn't help things. It got Shaun killed.

I was spared, that's all. Could Dad be right about common sense? Is he saying I have none-because that's not true and he's one to talk getting Mom pregnant after seeing what happened to Peg.

And dammit I knew Sobe was in trouble. I just didn't know from what end. But I was right to try and take her away. And I've been a good son, mostly, doing whatever I'm told. So how he can fault me, well he's mad at me. And worried. But bribing Ned for five minutes to talk to his own son, I can't feature it.

Well maybe he was buying more than those five minutes. I guess he was. We'll see.

So Dad talks to Ned outside where I can't hear and that ends in Ned coming in and unlocking my cell. I can go home.

I look at Dad. He nods I should quit standing there saying, "Golly-gee," and get my ass moving.

Ned won't look at me, and Dad won't stop looking at me so I get out, pick up my stuff and follow Dad out. Hallelujah I'm set free.

But we don't go home. When we pass Cullen Lane, and my heart is pulling for Sobe, Dad goes past.

"What are you doing?" I say so loudly I guess you could call it yelling.

Dad says he nearly had Ned keep me so I'd stay away from 'that poor girl' who has been through enough. I don't say, 'What about what I've been through, your own son, and maybe I'd like to be around my family too, or Sobe for sure!' But I don't say it cause he already told me I'm dumb.

"Calm down," he says. "We're going to see the Smiths."

Is he out of his mind? "Not me," I say.

He doesn't even glance at me.

I make to open the door while he's tooling along at fifteen miles per hour and he grabs my arm. "Stay put," he growls.

I do, but I'm looking around worse than when I was caged at the station. "He tried to kill me," I say, in case he forgot that part of the story.

"Calm down," he says. Then he looks at me. "Get ahold."

I've got ahold.

We are driving to Dewberry then. I'm having a million thoughts, imagining how this could go about ten different ways. He thinks he knows what he's doing going into Smith country without so much as a pocket knife then he's the one with no common sense. Which I already knew.

We get on to Smith country then and I feel it the minute we go into it. It's different here, more winding and hidden. Dips, hollers, trees. We live above ground, flat wide open we tear it up and cultivate it down and you can see us from a mile. We got the oil. We fill the boards and say what goes. But these, you don't see these coming until you do and then you better be ready for it.

Cellar dwellers. Smiths. I roll my window and let that cold wind hit me and I can smell those Smiths. Hand to God above I can and it's the smell of frozen peat and that which is just under the mud, the kind of things you didn't think about until you stick in the shovel and turn it over.

You have to look for their lane. It's not marked, it don't say welcome.

Dad slows when we get close. There's that big dead tree no one cuts for wood and hauls home. There's those strange white donkeys Tublar Smith raises. Your headlights hit them after dark and it's like a yard of ghost donkeys.

It's another world here.

Not long after the white donkeys there's the turn off. Then you go another mile on the roughest road God ever allowed in the kingdom of Hades. You see one poor ramshackle, then another and these are the relations that do their bidding, the poor-slaves of their plantation.

You go deep in to see Otto. He doesn't like you maybe you don't get out. I look at my dad. He will get out. And I already have. But now I'm back in and they bring it out of me, the jack-bastard that is alive and well. And Dad's right, he has no common sense at all.


	64. Chapter 64

Deep in the Heart of Me 64

Otto's lodge is big. It's dark wood and it's high up on legs. To the side there is a big building, a barn with a low roof and a wide door.

When I stole the mule it was at the cabin where they do the gambling. But this is where folks bring the furs he buys. The smell is dead on the wind. Skinned and scraped, cured and stacked, bundled and shipped.

Since Prohibition ended, that's what Smith is—a furrier. He doesn't farm. Cuts hay, a little tobacco. Otto Smith is a business man but his family lives poor. I don't know what he does with his money. It's not in Tillo or Utz. He doesn't put his treasure there is what I mean, not like Dad does with us.

There are skins stretched on the walls of the lodge and even though it's cold two of his men sit on the porch, both younger than Otto, older than me. One smokes a pipe. One a cigar.

My dad was a soldier. My dad was a fighter, he could box. My dad is a thousand men, the one I compare all other men to, even myself.

I came from him and he came from the land. Our land. And he conquered the world pretty much, and I was with him. I just wasn't formed. And knowing that pushes out of me now and holds its place in my mind when I'm scared. Cause my dad has told me, he's afraid of no man living.

Otto Smith did not go to war. But he didn't have to prove himself that way. He is feared.

My father looks at me. "Hold yourself," he says.

"I'm not afraid," I say, my stomach making a noise like my shit is churning to water.

Dad probably means I shouldn't piss myself.

Not a chance, unless they shoot me.

The two are standing now. One goes in. The other stands at the top of the long steps a person would have to climb to get up there.

The door opens and more men. Three this time. One of those turns and goes in and three more come out. Otto is in the middle, shorter than the rest, no coat, and pulling his suspenders in place.

He comes to the railing and he's looking down on us. He spits, but not at us, just nearby. Feels about the same.

"Well now," Otto says.

Dad and I move closer in. We are looking up at them lining the railing. They all wear hats. Fedora's mostly, some billed caps. Big Belly is the last to join their line.

I look at him. I'm angry at myself that I want to look away. Dad told me to stand up. I'm standing.

"I'm here about the trouble that went on," Dad says.

"The sheriff?" Otto says. "No skin off mine. I didn't bring him in."

News like that travels far. He looks at me, they all do. In their eyes I killed a lawman and it's a question on me.

"I'm here about all of it," Dad says.

"Must be a hole in the Cullen pocket. First Tolson, now this. Must of brought you down."

Dad doesn't say. Tolson in his pocket?

Otto goes on, "That one fancies the daughter I hear," he's pointing at me. "Guess he's got her now. Goes after what he wants."

I keep my hands out of my pockets. Like Dad. The Smiths are a long dark line. And Otto just accused me of murder.

"How's the mule?" I ask.

I'm surprised I ask it. My voice doesn't seem to be mine.

Otto has a lump of chaw in his cheek that he shifts around. I don't think he's going to answer. But I'm not taunting him or rubbing his nose in it either. I want to know.

"Mended," he says.

"Sugar and iodine," I say.

I look at Dad and I see he's surprised. I'm smiling, but Dad isn't. I think I'm close to foolish right now. My hands go in my pockets after all. But the mule comes around the side of the house like he recognizes my voice. I know he doesn't, but there's near happiness at seeing him. He comes over to me and sniffs my shirt. I can't help but check his leg. Then I pet him.

"He knows me," I say low. I don't know to whom.

"Need to speak," Dad says to Otto. "You and me."

"It's confusing. You said never again," Otto says hands over his heart like it's broken.

"Not here for myself," Dad says like Otto is a nitwit.

But maybe I'm the nitwit. Does Dad know Otto that well?

I don't know why I do it. It's hard to stand still. I get on Jack's back. He steps around and gives out his braying sound. It ends in a perfect hee-haw. It's like he's gearing up for a show.

Someone says, "He's doing it again," meaning I'm taking off on Jack, but that ain't so.

"He don't like people," Otto says.

"That kid must be something else," someone says. They laugh at that.

"Come to steal him again," Otto calls.

I hope to get fancy, but J.B. has that stubborn mind. He kicks his hinders and they roar and clap and he takes off then, stops short, nearly throws me then circles back. It's a hell of a ride with this one. I wish he was mine.

I get off then and I look sheepish at Dad.

"Through?" he says. And I nod, and Jack pushes against the back of my shoulder determined to find an apple. He decides I'm barren as a winter tree and takes off trotting the way he came.

Damn he's fine.

Otto says something to the one next to him. That one comes down first. Tall and skinny, hat pulled over his brow. He's holding a rifle, barrel down. He walks toward me.

Rifle grabs me and makes to frisk me. I'm surprised to see Dad holding the Luger on him. My Luger. Belly's Luger. That I said was Shaun's. That Ned had. That Luger.

I am ready to grab this rifle. But I watch Dad.

"Take your hand off of him," Dad says to Rifle. "Take your hand off."

Rifle looks up and Otto nods.

"Is he armed?" Otto says. Meaning me. He can see Dad already is.

"No," Dad says to Otto. Then to Rifle, "Take your hand off."

I pull free.

"Get over here," Dad says to me and I walk to him. He pushes me behind him like that will keep me alive.

I can feel how alive he is now. I feel it.

Dad holds the Luger on Rifle, then he slowly sweeps it up and puts it on Otto.

I can't believe it. I'm proud and terrified.

"Boss?" Rifle says.

Others show weapons. All are pointed at us.

We stand that way. My hand is on Dad. I don't want us to go this way. Shot down and bodies hidden on Smith land. I want to see Sobe. I want to be with her. And Maman. The children will be orphans. Aunt Christah…nine children coming her way. And Sobe will marry another. My Sobe.

I step from around him. I can't speak to Otto Smith looking over my daddy's shoulder, now can I.

"Boyo," Dad hisses.

"You came on our land," I say to Otto.

I clear my throat and I say it again. "You came on our land, so I came on yours."

"Janky little bastard," Otto says and the others laugh. "Even more full of himself now he's tasted blood."

I don't want to give them the satisfaction of saying Shaun's name. But I'm close. I'm close to tearing one of these posts in two that hold up the porch they stand on. With my teeth.

Now Belly starts down the porch stairs. Dad told me to stand up. My anger holds me straight.

Rifle steps aside so Belly won't have to move around him even though there's nothing more than sour frozen grass peppered with chaw.

"That's my gun," Belly says. He's chewing a toothpick and he holds a rifle. He has his hand out like Dad should surrender the Luger just on his say-so.

My dad shoots Belly and he falls back and I look down and he's shot between the eyes.

He's dead.

My chin is wobbling and my ears ring with a sound like Dad shot into a pipe. But it was Belly's head. Forehead more exact.

I look up and Rifle is as I'll-be-damned as me. He remembers to lift his gun and train it on Dad. There is all kinds of yammering from the porch.

Otto Smith is cursing. He tears down the stairs with the others on his heels.

His hands are out toward Dad. "God sakes man, put it away," he says.

But Dad doesn't put it away. He has the Luger trained on Otto.

"Get behind me boyo," he says without looking at me. He's staring at Smith.

My legs are shaking but I nearly do what he says. I get beside him.

"He was my brother-in-law!" Otto yells. "Once he was."

"Shaun was blood! And this one is my son!" Day yells back, thundering. It scares me like nothing else.

Time passes like a drip of molasses, but not long enough to even swipe your hand under your nose.

"You want a war," Dad says, "you think you'll win? I'm here for the law."

"Like the day you had Tillo and Utz in your truck!" Otto yells. "Were you deputy then?"

"It was a kindness! They painted the schoolhouse together! It was the new day you stupid ass. Like we promised when we shook hands over him. On his fuckin' death bed," Dad says.

I am looking one to another. I've widened the space a little between me and my father.

"I don't want any trouble," Otto says.

"You've begged for it," Dad accuses.

"That Shaun was a big mouth. Big words. He was in us for two hundred," Otto says. He gestures toward Belly, "This one sent him a message. He was ambitious. That's all."

"You sent your message to me," Dad says.

"Your kid rode through here…a damn thief!" Otto says. "He took my mule!"

"This one," Dad gestures with the pistol at Belly, "took Shaun's Luger, the one I gave him, the one I took off a German officer…after I killed him, the one Shaun kept under his bed, like I told him to, the day he brought it to me, the day I said he could take it, so my boys…so my sons would never find it, never feel it in their hands…. Then he tried to use it to kill my son. Ambitious again."

Otto closes his eyes and turns in a half-circle then turns back quick. "And he shot out my damn windows," he says.

"Fuck your windows!" Dad yells.

"Well he died for it didn't he?" Otto kicks at Belly.

"Here's what I'm passing to Ned…," Dad says, "here is what you'll say, 'They ran through, a Halloween prank. You defended your place. If one of your boys shot Shaun you didn't know. There's no harm in defending what's yours.'"

Otto doesn't look at Dad. "There always has been. You've seen to that. You're seeing to it now."

"The idiot in you must come from your mother," Dad says.

"Leave my mother out of this. She paid enough for what he did."

"He did nothing she didn't open her legs for," Dad says.

Otto makes a fist and growls at Dad. Then he slaps the fist into his palm.

Dad takes in a breath and looks at the Luger. He disarms the gun, puts the ammunition in his pocket. The gun goes back in his belt. "Some things you can't get rid of. Thorn in the flesh."

Otto waves at Dad without looking at him. He's done with us.

Dad says, "C'mon boyo."

I follow in Dad's steps then.

"Make sure they all know," Otto calls. "John and Frank. And Pat. Mike. Tell Bill."

"We've kept our end," Dad says without turning around. "We've always kept our end."

But I can't help looking over my shoulder. We get in the truck and I'm looking out my window as they gather round Belly and pick up his corpse. Anyone hid on this land today…it won't be us.

Dad starts the truck and it's then he looks at me, first time since he's killed Belly. "You did fine."

My mouth is open, my chin pumps a couple of times.

"Just don't tell your mother. Not a word."

"Tell her what? That you killed him? And Otto Smith he's…what is he? What are you?"

His hand comes around the back of my neck, like at the jail, but not anything like that. I am holding myself stiff and away, but I need to see his eyes. I need…I don't know what.

He feels me resist, and his face goes from the cold stranger and there's emotion. He's looking at me like he does. Once or twice. It feels like a long time.

"I'm your dad. Don't you ever forget it. I'm your dad."

He's looking at me with love and his eyes have shine. The truck is rumbling and it's not safe here.

But I reach for his wrist and hold on.


	65. Chapter 65

Deep in the Heart of Me 65

My story starts in the middle of someone else's. My dad's.

It doesn't do any good to be mad. I am mad. But not just that.

The fight in me has pulled inside.

For a while it's quiet, like we both just want to get away and leave Otto Smith behind us.

"Is he the thorn in your flesh?" I finally say.

Dad side-eyes me as he shifts. "The Luger," Dad says.

I blow through my lips and look out my window. I don't believe that.

"You telling the truth? About the Luger?" I say. It's the first time I ever questioned him or entertained the possibility he could lie.

He does laugh now, just once. But he doesn't answer.

"It's the truth then?" I say.

He shifts around a little. I know that gun digs his back.

But I wait.

I feel the balloon inside my chest filling again. It's pressure.

"Why'd you…."

"Kill him?"

"No. I mean yes. But you said that about his mother." He said the four-lettered word he would kill us for saying.

It's hard to remember all of his words. I was trying to get over the dead man.

"I wasn't born yesterday, son. That's all."

"But they all saw it!"

He looks at me, then away. "That was the idea."

"You're a farmer, right? Just a farmer?"

He smiles at me but doesn't answer. Again.

"Well what are you then?" I say. I'm angry.

He stops along there, near those white mules. "Tonio, you know me. Take a breath, Son."

"I'm breathing. Guess I don't need you to tell me." I see those bodies, Shaun first. That's the worst. A body without the man in it, his soul they call it, well it just looks worse than you can imagine. It looks wrong, eyes so empty.

"Will you go to jail for this?"

"No," he says like I'm ridiculous.

"Are you saying Otto Smith is family?" It's the worst notion to ever enter my head.

"Smiths and us go back across the ocean. It was never proven, about Otto. But…my mother, when that family was hurting, she never held it against them," he says grinding the gears forward. "But he's not family. I would never call him that."

"I don't know what that means," I say. This is not something to be foggy on.

"When you're older…."

"Dad. I am older," I say.

He stares a little. "I guess you are," he says almost like he's sad about it.

Well he shot a man in front of me. I guess he knows I'm not Pee-Wee.

"That's three of them haunting you now," he says. "Father, son and holy ghost."

"Who…?"

"Shaun, the sheriff and now the one I just killed at Smith's."

"Shaun was nothing like those others," I say.

"Shaun," Dad says. "He became the proverb, didn't he."

I don't know why Dad is so against Shaun. I say that.

"He put all this in motion," Dad says. "Couldn't tell him a thing. Blessed are the meek. You know why?"

I shake my head some though I don't like where this is going. Dad loves to get philosophical right when you want to know something.

"Because the meek will listen. Listening is a good thing to cultivate in yourself, boyo. That's why I make you boys repeat instructions. I want you to listen."

We are nearly out of Smith country when I prove I can listen, "You said a crude thing…about his mother."

"Well…heat of the moment," he says.

"And the thing about the death bed," I say. "You shook hands…." See, it's coming back to me now.

"It's old things that need to be laid to rest."

"You're the one who said them."

He stops the truck again. There in the middle of the road. "Boy. My father was a good man. Mostly. He…maybe he…we were never for sure. She said it…his mother. That Otto was…maybe he was…Dad's."

I am horrified.

"It wasn't true?" I say.

"It…couldn't be proved," he says. "But it hurt us. The notion. It took our pride," he says. He wipes over his mouth. "My brothers…it's been us to stand strong. My dad…he was good mostly. Good. But next to my mother…well she was a saint."

"How could he…."

"I think you know how. You were almost a married man yourself."

"It's got nothing to do with being married," I say hotly. "Does it?"

"You make that promise boyo, it is for life. You better be sure."

"Were you?"

"With your mother? What are you talking about? She was the one took all the risk on a cocky mutt bastard."

"Would you ever…I mean…have you?"

"Of course not. Your mother… I settled that when I asked her to marry me. She said yes and I ain't over it yet. You just remember, a man cheats on his wife, cheats on his family."

It eases me to hear him say it. He loves her like that, loves us like that.

Before we are home we talk about the gun. He thinks throwing it overboard after the war like he'd nearly done could have saved all of us.

"Without the Luger, Sheriff would have shot me. And I don't know what he had planned for Sobe."

I tell him what Sobe told me about her trials with her father.

He reaches behind and wrestles his coat and gets the Luger in his hand and shoves it under his seat.

"You can't own that gun. You can't own it. But maybe that's why I brought it home then," he says.

It's a big idea, that he brought it home so I could save Sobe.

"Look at us," he says. "Deciding who lives…and dies. Your mother would think we're playing God. But we both know we're playing the devil sometimes and that's the truth Tonio. A man plays the devil sometimes. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I say. "Yes sir."

"But he better have good reason," he says like he's given me license to sin, "a damn good one. Understand?"

Then he answers himself, "You do. What you did in the jail, hard put to know a man could have come out of that tussle alive."

This does bring it out of me. I am full of tears and I didn't know. I can feel it, a big ball in my stomach and chest, what I've been carrying since…since Shaun. I try to swallow it down, but it's got the push to get out.

"Dad," I say, wrenching the door open and Dad yells, "What are you doing?" And I get out and take some steps and I think I'll be sick, and hands on my knees, it starts small and next I know I can barely breathe and Dad is there patting my back while I sob shameful like a baby and out it comes, sounds and tears and my last meal and all of it…all of it. All of it.

111111111111111

Dad gives me time to get it out, and he doesn't hold it against me.

I'm pretty much limp as a dead fish when it's over. There's no more to say. I'm related to Tillo and Utz and I pretty much shot Sobe's dad right before her. I guess it's settled in me.

I'm done sniffling when he pulls into Uncle John's lane though. "What's this?" I say sounding clogged.

"This is your new home until your hearing," Dad says. "They're short here and you'll work with Mike and see you don't get in more trouble."

"How…what?"

"You were told to stay clear of Miss Sobe and you will. Hear me? You will not disobey on this or you'll end back in jail. Now I'll see Ned on it and if he comes to check you will be found where I say."

I touch her picture still safe in my pocket. I will have that at least. Unless I sneak home just to look in the window. I don't think I can be this close to Sobe and not end up closer.

"Get out, boy. I've work to do," Dad says.

I grab my knapsack and stumble out then. My legs feel heavy. But Dad leaves me there and he backs out without so much as a wave. I take in a big breath and blow it out as I eye Aunt Christah's house far up the lane. Smoke winds from the chimney and the black dog up there on the porch is lifting its head. He comes tearing down the stairs making a line for me.

And such a powerful longing for Sobe is in me, it's all I can do to make my feet trudge toward the attacking dog.

I swing my knapsack onto my back. I hope being grown gets better.


	66. Chapter 66

Thanks Robsessed. Deeply touched here by your many shout-outs about this story. Thank you.

Thanks readers for hanging on. I appreciate your comments.

Deep in the Heart of Me 66

Jasper comes over to Uncle John's that first night.

Sobe has not stayed on our farm, but has returned to Miss Rivers' house.

She'd been upset when I didn't come home, Jasper said.

"Maman was worried and Miss Rivers spoke of taking Sobe to the hospital. She thought you were in jail again," my brother says.

"That is where I was headed, but it turned out differently," I say.

I look away from him. He is like I used to be, just a boy who farms and can hit a baseball, catch one too. Just a boy who doesn't think much past the end of his nose. Just wide-eyed and happy.

"She said she wanted to go back to town to be by you," he says.

I do look at him now. These are grown things to be saying. I don't know as he's ever thought about such a thing as love.

"Miss Rivers took her home, well Dad did, in the truck."

I think about that Luger under the front seat, unless Dad took it from under there. Hard telling what he'd do with it.

"I got to follow with Miss Rivers and ride the bean!" he says all joyous.

"That all you care about, time like this?" I say.

It takes the starch out of him some.

Maybe I'm jealous, I don't know. I pretty much ruined his happy story, and it felt mean and kind of good even though I'd been planning to do better by him.

Next day he found out they had shipped Sheriff's body up north to be buried beside his murdered wife. Miss Rivers claimed she would travel there with Sobe when she was better if that's what she wanted.

Now that bothered me a whole lot, Miss Rivers planning to take Sobe off to do that. I couldn't imagine Sobe standing at those two graves without me there to help her. I am sorry all over that I've had anything to do with one of them. Then really quickly I am not sorry she is free of Sheriff. But Miss Rivers, who does she think she is anyway?

I write Sobe another letter for Jasper to deliver. I admit I am tempted to deliver it myself but I am thinking twice about my spur-of-the-moment inclinations.

Jasper said Sobe had been worried she would keep me from my own home if she'd stayed on. What she didn't know is, I have been known to live part time at Uncle John's, particularly when Pat runs dogs or we harvest. Or sometimes when Aunt Christah makes sausage or puts up peaches or makes jam. Then there's chess. I've broken through two feet of snow in the black of night to finish a game against Uncle John when Pat or Mike wouldn't play him.

And baseball. There are no small children there to spoil the game as it comes over the radio. I've listened to many innings in Aunt Christah's parlor, not that I paid much attention this past October, even though the Gashouse Gang took the series.

So she's no need of Miss Rivers. Doesn't that woman have school to teach? Anyway, she should of stayed on the farm. I want Sobe to come back.

'Be near me,' I write. I write that. Not the Miss Rivers part, but, 'be near me.'

Well I send that by Jasper's hand and lo and behold if he does not return with a letter but a box. Inside is a big lock of Sobe's hair tied in a red ribbon. And a note reading, "I am always near you."

At first I am taken by the note. 'Always near me.' It's a comfort to know her feelings are that way.

But I can't believe she would give this to me—her hair! I worry that it's too much. I mean—too much! It's thick! It is so thick I fear she's gone bald. Can worry cause someone to lose all of their beautiful hair?

I question Jasper. "Was she bald?" I say.

"She wore a scarf. Like a gypsy," he says. He's chewing gum and that's making me mad. I don't know why. I think I want to be mad.

I have no idea if she's cut her beautiful hair like a boy. I asked her not to touch it. Why would she ruin her beautiful hair?

Whatever it means, I go to sleep that night holding onto that ponytail. I wouldn't admit this in daylight, but I hold it against my face, over my eyes and it's damp after.

I am a worried man.

Next day I write again thanking her for those words about being near and her hair and hoping she didn't ruin it cause I do love it so much. I tell her that. If any is left, maybe she will think twice before hacking it off too.

Once again she writes but does not mention her hair. But she is the one to tell me we have a date to be heard in judge's chambers in Springfield one week away.

As soon as I get hopeful we can have that long trip together Sobe writes that Miss Rivers will be driving her in her father's Ford a day early so she can rest before seeing the judge.

I am not easily defeated. But Miss Rivers is about twanging my nerves like a banjo. I say to myself, okay, you are not traveling to Springfield with Sobe, but I let my dread over testifying lighten considerably by the hope I have of seeing my one true love in Springfield. And I don't miss the fact that she must rest like she is Maman or something but in this world I have to be patient when I can't get to this girl I love because only God can fly around and be at two places same time.

And one thing's for sure. I am not God.

And neither is Miss Pat Rivers. That's for sure.

111111111111111

Dad and me have left in the dark the night before court. He is quiet. I wonder if he's got conscience over killing Belly, like maybe it will change him, whiten his hair or make his hands shake, but he is just Dad, driving quiet and eating a bacon sandwich.

He looks at the cold turned land all the way to Springfield. He even pulls over a few times to look over someone's ground like he sees a new something he hasn't seen before.

White birds flock over the dark earth picking it clean. The sky is two shades darker maybe like the sun can't penetrate this gray world. I think maybe people who write poems write them on days like these and they are not the happy ones, but the ones that make you hate poetry.

So we get to the city around nine in the morning and we are to meet with the judge at ten. Maman wanted us to take the train but Dad said no we would take the truck and he could bring home parts for the tractor and some things from the store there as he is always killing a whole flock of birds with one stone if possible. Even the day his son goes before the judge he is thinking of the farm and the family. It's just like that. And maybe it makes this normal almost.

I am all eager to see Sobe. Here I've been living a mile from her and not a sight of her so now I am starving to see her. After this I can see her all I want, and I haven't asked Dad but I plan to ride home with her. That's my idea anyway and I am pretty determined on it.

But we buy a breakfast I can barely eat at a place selling pancakes big as the plate, and then we get to the courthouse and it is a big imposing place all right. Well I am a fish out of water anyway, even in these Sunday clothes and Pat's outgrown overcoat.

The buildings here strike God's fear in me some. I think about Sobe and she knows these places. I don't know why I ever thought I had a chance with her. But I did. And I do think that. She is always near me.

So I am pacing in the hall with the shiny floor and the pictures of important men who I admire and do not trust if such a thing can be done. So I am touching her picture for it rarely leaves me and I know it's getting wear, but until I have her it fills in.

And a door opens and a slight girl and Miss Pat Rivers. I didn't even know Sobe was here and she's already been in to see the old man and here I was the whole time watching the top of the stairs.

First off, she's cut her hair. Clean off. She's wearing a hat and it's tight on her head, and I can see the chopped ends. Second she is blue under her eyes and she is tiny and pale. She is beautiful, but my Sobe is suffering.

"What…," I say going right to her, my hand on her thin arm, thin under her coat even.

"Oh Tonio," she says as if I've been sent to God's left hand.

"It's all right," I say, but there is a pit in my stomach.

The lady in the doorway, not Miss Rivers, is calling me and it sounds bonkers but I'm kind of surprised they know my name here, in this big place.

I want to kiss Sobe's forehead at least, give her some encouragement. But Miss Rivers is right there and Dad and I have to go. Dad is on his feet, his hat in his hand. I grab my cap off my head and look back at Sobe. I smile but this is a fix and I know it.

So we get in there and it's an office and the lady is wearing perfume and it's a flower garden, sickly so like someone died, but I don't have time to think it before she opens a bigger door and it's cigars then, also disgusting, so in we go and the judge is behind a big desk and he motions us to the two chairs in front of the big block of wood.

Before Dad sits he leans over the desk and introduces himself and then me. He puts out a hand to shake and the judge waves he should sit and Dad looks at me like, 'get your ass in the chair,' and so I do. And I've got a bad feeling before we speak a word.


	67. Chapter 67

Deep in the Heart of Me 67

My eyes keep moving to the American flag standing tall to the side and behind Judge's desk. It drapes in several long pleats from its golden stand. We learned in school there is no official meaning for the colors, but that's not how we've been taught at home—red for the blood men like my father have spilled to make us free, white for the purity of those ideals we protect, blue for valor and courage and never giving up the cause of freedom.

I am always moved at how much the flag seems to mean to my dad. "Don't let it touch the ground boyos," he says to us on the Fourth of July.

He followed our flag into war. And anytime we sing God Bless America, my dad puts his hat over his heart and has taught me and my brothers to do the same and my dad sings out, 'Land that I love,' and all the rest like his heart will break.

For me, loving this country is loving our land and town, the home of my family. And that flag stands for all of it.

But here I know it a new way. It's like that flag isn't just mine but belongs to the government and it's listening to the judge tell me how serious a matter it is to be so connected to the death of an officer of the law in these United States.

That has settled on me long before. The day of Sheriff's death I went from struggling on the floor with him to looking in the eyes of Sobe. If Judge Moeller thinks I don't know it was something terrible to feel that gun go off and drive another bullet into Sheriff, then he and his soft looking hands with the trimmed white nails and his sweaty temples and upper lip and cold colorless eyes are sadly mistaken.

My father has schooled me well. "Every picture has a frame, boyo, and here is how you will frame what happened with Sheriff."

Ned did not officially link Dad's gun to Shaun's death. Otto Smith gave statement that Shaun was hit during the night of mischief. It was moving toward Shaun's death being accidental. And it was.

I think Dad killed Belly as much for Ned as for me. Belly got out of line and meant to be his own boss is what I think and Otto was only allowed to run numbers and all the rest cause he kissed the law's ring. Belly didn't have that sense of neighborliness.

I think that's how it worked. When I asked Dad if he killed Belly for Ned, he said, "Never say such a thing again long as you live." But that don't keep me from thinking it.

So I tell my story to the judge and he asks questions and questions and questions like why I had a gun in the first place.

I tell him me and Sobe were going to the city and I wanted to protect her and Dad says, "Country boys. You know Judge," and Judge tells Dad to keep still or he'll have to wait in the lobby.

So as it stands and true as I'm being in telling it, it doesn't sound so good, especially when it fans out to include the business with Shaun. It's not a good story is what I mean. And he has statements from so many people, Ned, Jim and his dad, Pat, Sobe. Bottom line, I was running off with a girl and a man protected his daughter and who could blame him, that's kind of what it comes out like.

Appears there are problems all the way through. It's a story of a boy who doesn't think, who sets things in motion that get people hurt and ultimately killed.

I get people killed is what he's saying.

My dad tries to protest and he has to sit against the wall and next step is out the door.

I know then, right then I'm going away. I'm going somewhere cause he's not going to let a boy like me loose on peaceful society.

So when he says a year at The State Industrial School for Boys and my dad starts to yell about me having a father and that's a place for boys without a dad, I don't even want to fight at all. I just sit and watch the two men pull dad out and I don't even feel like I'm really in the room.

The judge is still talking and the red, white and blue stands there like we've never met, or maybe we have, just now.

I am escorted to another room, a windowless office where I sit alone and a lady brings me a glass of water, but she doesn't smile. After a spell my dad comes in and he looks like he ran through a tornado, but he's got his hat and he's twirling it some. "Look, boyo, we made a big mistake not going to trial with a jury of common folks who can see you aren't some wandering bum without a family…," and it jars me some when he chokes up and puts his head down and it's quiet but there's a shake in his shoulders.

When he lifts his head, he's swallowed it, and he looks me in the eye, "I'll get a solicitor," there's a steely set in his voice, "and we'll fight the daylights out of this, Tonio. I can't go home without my boy," he says again his voice choking as his head goes down once more, "your mother…."

Then he lifts quick and shouts, "What did I fight for this damn country for if I have to see my own son locked up…."

"Dad," I say standing. "It will be all right. You have to tell Maman it will be fine. Otherwise…."

He's nodding, and I'm thrown to see he's listening to me for once.

"It's only a year," I say and the room swims and I sit back down and feel sick, those big pancakes I'd forced down from breakfast are crawling up my throat.

A whole year.


	68. Chapter 68

Deep in the Heart of Me 68

Dad is spending the night in Springfield but I can't stay with him. I am in custody.

"He's my son," Dad says, but that doesn't fix it and I don't expect it to.

The room I'm held in is not a cell, but another small room with a cot and a night table. The bathroom is down the hall. I go there to wash and it has a flusher and that's fine.

Dad brings my knapsack which has a few extras because we didn't know about the weather and it's best to be prepared. But even the sight of my knapsack worried Maman though I'd been pretty much living out of it since staying at Aunt Christah's.

"Listen to me Tonio, I'm right here. I'm going along. You're not alone. Do you hear me?" Dad says as they make him say good night.

I just nod. I hear him, but he's already far away, in my mind, the other side of a fence, barbed wire. His eyes, looking at me. Not this way. Not like this.

When I am alone, it's so quiet in the room. They've given me a sandwich on a tray and two pickles that are so dead I don't know why they are called pickles and not dead green discs of hopelessness.

I am being prepared to be a useful member of society, happy, healthy and able to do something for a living that will keep me out of trouble. That's the gist I've gotten from the fella that came in and gave me a pamphlet that says, Illinois Industrial School for Boys.

It's not so far, like Wyoming or Florida. It's not that far. My dad, he crossed the ocean to fight the great war. My dad, if I can be gotten out of this, he will do it.

I stare a long time, into the dark and strange sounds of automobiles going by, then quiet, then people in the hallway. I already know from Ned throwing me in jail that not being able to go where I want to is a thing to settle into. I think of Sobe, closing herself in my cell.

Then that last day already in the one across from me. He put her there. Well he did that in life. He didn't want her to have anything or anyone. He held the key, that's what I mean. He wanted that key right in his pocket.

He wanted to die. That's what. Am I a killer? Would I have killed Belly?

Dad did. Would I have? That night I got the Luger, did I have it in me?

"You're like me," Dad said.

I hope I am.

"You can't just take my son away like this," Dad says next morning. "I am following in my truck."

They allow this. Of course he can follow if he wants. So he does. We ride and ride and into the night and my Dad has followed.

Chicago is a big place. Bigger than St. Louis even. I always wanted to see it, but not from the back of this car where the one riding passenger lets me know I'm lucky I didn't end up in state prison. Damn lucky. A year in reform school is a slap on the wrist, that's what. I should say thanks to the judge and my father needs to pipe down and let me pay my debt.

I don't answer. Maybe it will be like this now, some official spouting at me and me staying quiet. Like Jesus did.

I am eyes now. I don't feel the edges of myself, or the middle. I'm just eyes now. I don't know who Tonio Cullen is. Not here where it's big and strange and hungry.

And Dad says this when we get to the school before they take me in, "Tonio. Tonio."

They tell him it's late and he says, "Give me a minute with my son."

And he says, "I ever tell you son, I tell you how it was the day they laid you…in my arms."

"Dad…I…."

"They laid you there and you were…you were this…. The only thing I'd done…really pure…was love your mother. And she took it…that love…and made you. She made you, see?"

"Sir…," the guard says.

"C'mon," he says holding up his hand but he won't look anywhere but at me. "Tonio…you were angry. You wanted to stay in there. With Mom. And…," he laughs but in the gray light, his eyes are shiny, "…you were angry and hungry strong. For a baby. You wrapped your fingers around my…pointer."

"Dad…."

His hands are on my arms, "I never…felt anything like that. Like…you. You make me…proud," he chokes.

"Proud?" I say. I can't feature it.

He looks at the two then, "This is how I deliver him. Like this. Not a mark on him. He's healthy and perfect. I'll be watching and I see anything…a mark I don't like even…anything. I'll kill the man that harms him," he says.

"Sir, step back," the guard says his hand moving back his jacket.

"Dad," I say. "Dad…go home."

"What? No son. No. I can't go home without you. Long as you're here, I'm right here. Everyday I'm working on getting you out."

"Dad," I say. "Dad listen to me. You have to go home. For Mom. You have to. The only way she'll survive me…is if you're there. You have to go home."

His hands are so tight on my arms and he's looking at me, into me.

"Dad…go home. You have to go home," I say. "I can do this if I know you're there. With Maman."

"Tonio…."

"Take…take her to the hospital this time. She shouldn't have this one at home."

"Son…."

"Dad…please. You have to go home."

But he doesn't. The first night it's another room. I can't go into the boys' dormitory without a medical check-up. So it's a cot and a scratchy blanket and a hard pillow, and I think of Maman's quilts and the down she saves for the pillows that cradle our heads.

I think of Sobe. Her picture is in my jacket pocket. I left her tail of hair at Aunt Christah's. I don't want it here. Even her picture. I have to see what this place is.

I think of her beautiful face and the fringe of hair along the back of her cap. Her eyes big. She knew then. Sobe knew.

And I dream and I cry in my dreams and I scream and I work so hard and I wake up and I can't remember. Will my life be like that if I'm lucky enough to awaken in heaven? Is it like they say? You wake up happy and none of what came before matters.

I am sitting on my cot when they open the door and say I can come out. My father is there, coming out of the office. He's making the speech once more about a mark, not a mark on me. This is my son, and there's not a mark on him.

"I am here, you understand boyo?" he says to me again, but they are waiting for him to leave. It's time. They want to examine me, make sure I won't carry sickness to the others.

I don't like doctors, but what I like is not so important now. I shake Dad's hand and he can visit on Sunday. Next Sunday.

"I'm here. Not a mile away. I'm staying here."

I am shaking my head. "Dad," I say, "go home."

I barely get it out. Then they take me into a room and I'm told to undress.

There's a window when I turn my back to remove my shirt, and I see Dad then, walking to his truck. He turns and looks back at the buildings, then all over he's looking. He's holding his hat in his hands and he's standing there now and he's looking.

"Go home," I whisper, an ache in my chest that makes me catch my breath.

"The pants too," the nurse says.

And I move then. And I think of him getting in the truck. And I don't know if I can live past this moment.


End file.
